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HERO TALES 
FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 



112L 



HERO TALES 

FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 



BY 

HENRY CABOT LODGE 

AND 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



— "And high deeds 
Haunt not the fringy edges of the fight, 
But the pell-mell of men." 

CLOUGH 




NEW YORK 
THE CENTURY CO. 

1895 




■ 



Copyright, 1895, by 
The Century Co. 



THE DEVINNE PRESS. 




GENERAL GRANT RECONNOITERING THE CONFEDERATE POSITION. 
FROM A SKETCH MADE AT THE TIME. 



TO 

E. K. R. 



To you we owe the suggestion of writing this book. Its 
purpose, as you know better than any one else, is to tell in sim- 
ple fashion the story of some Americans who showed that they 
knew how to live and how to die; who proved their truth by 
their endeavor; and who joined to the stern and manly qual- 
ities which are essential to the well-being of a masterful race 
the virtues of gentleness, of patriotism, and of lofty adherence 
to an ideal. 

It is a good thing for all Americans, and it is an espe- 
cially good thing for young Americans, to remember the men 
who have given their lives in war and peace to the service of 
their fellow-countrymen, and to keep in mind the feats of dar- 
ing and personal prowess done in time past by some of the 
many champions of the nation in the various crises of her his- 
tory. Thrift, industry, obedience to law, and intellectual cul- 
tivation are essential qualities in the make-up of any successful 
people; but no people can be really great unless they possess 
also the heroic virtues which are as needful in time of peace as 
in time of war, and as important in civil as in military life. 
As a civilized people we desire peace, but the only peace worth 
having is obtained by instant readiness to fight when wronged 
— not by unwillingness or inability to fight at all. Intelligent 
foresight in preparation and known capacity to stand well in 
battle are the surest safeguards against war. America will 



cease to be a great nation whenever her young men cease to 
possess energy, daring, and endurance, as well as the wish 
and the power to fight the nation's foes. No citizen of a free 
state should wrong any man; but it is not enough merely to 
refrain from infringing on the rights of others; he must also be 
able and willing to stand up for his own rights and those of his 
country against all comers, and he must be ready at any time 
to do his full share in resisting either malice domestic or for- 
eign levy. 

HENRY CABOT LODGE. 
THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 



Washington, 

April 19, 1895. 



HERO TALES 
FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 



" Hor. I saw him once; he was a goodly king. 

Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all, 

I shall not look upon his like again." 

— Hamlet. 



""OSev Y) sv nua-fl eXeoflspia TEf)pap.|j.£vot 6t T(Lv8e te itatepe? xai 
YjfxlTjpoi xai aoxoi ootoc xal xaXu>? {povtec noXXa Syj xai xaXa epva 
ajce^iTjOavto ei? rcavcac av8pa«too? xal JSia xai or^o-la, o'.ofjuvo'. Sslv 
oirlp ttjc, eXeuSepias xai "EXXtjoiv orclp TiIXXtjvwv jxd/ssOai xac Bap^a- 

po'.? orcep aTravcwv T(Lv 'EXXyjvcdv." 



" Hence it is that the fathers of these men and ours also, and they them- 
selves likewise, being nurtured in all freedom and well born, have shown 
before all men many and glorious deeds in public and private, deeming it 
their duty to fight for the cause of liberty and the Greeks, even against 
Greeks, and against Barbarians for all the Greeks." 

— plato: "MENEXENUS." 



1, 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

George Washington i 

Daniel Boone and the Founding of Kentucky . 17 
George Rogers Clark and the Conquest of the 

Northwest 29 

The Battle of Trenton 43 

Bennington 57 

King's Mountain 69 

The Storming of Stony Point , . . 79 

gouverneur morris 91 

The Burning of the "Philadelphia" 101 

The Cruise of the "Wasp" 115 

The "General Armstrong" Privateer 127 

The Battle of New Orleans 137 

John Quincy Adams and the Right of Petition . 149 

Francis Parkman 161 

"Remember the Alamo" 171 

Hampton Roads 183 

The Flag-Bearer 197 

The Death of Stonewall Jackson 211 

The Charge at Gettysburg 225 

General Grant and the Vicksburg Campaign . . 237 

Robert Gould Shaw 249 

Charles Russell Lowell 261 

Sheridan at Cedar Creek 279 

Lieutenant Cushing and the Ram "Albemarle" . 291 

Farragut at Mobile Bay 301 

Abraham Lincoln 323 



HERO TALES 
FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 



WASHINGTON 

THE brilliant historian of the English people* 
has written of Washington, that " no nobler 
figure ever stood in the fore-front of a nation's 
life." In any book which undertakes to tell, no 
matter how slightly, the story of some of the 
heroic deeds of American history, that noble 
figure must always stand in the fore-front. But 
to sketch the life of Washington even in the bar- 
est outline is to write the history of the events 
which made the United States independent and 
gave birth to the American nation. Even to give 
a list of what he did, to name his battles and re- 
count his acts as president, would be beyond the 
limit and the scope of this book. Yet it is always 
possible to recall the man and to consider what 
he was and what he meant for us and for man- 

* John Richard Green. 



2 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

kind. He is worthy the study and the remem- 
brance of all men, and to Americans he is at once 
a great glory of their past and an inspiration and 
an assurance of their future. 

To understand Washington at all we must first 
strip off all the myths which have gathered about 
him. We must cast aside into the dust-heaps all 
the wretched inventions of the cherry-tree vari- 
ety, which were fastened upon him nearly seventy 
years after his birth. We must look at him as he 
looked at life and the facts about him, without any 
illusion or deception, and no man in history can 
better stand such a scrutiny. 

Born of a distinguished family in the days 
when the American colonies were still ruled by 
an aristocracy, Washington started with all that 
good birth and tradition could give. Beyond 
this, however, he had little. His family was poor, 
his mother was left early a widow, and he was 
forced after a very limited education to go out 
into the world to fight for himself. He had 
strong within him the adventurous spirit of his 
race. He became a surveyor, and in the pursuit 
of this profession plunged into the wilderness, 
where he soon grew to be an expert hunter and 
backwoodsman. Even as a boy the gravity of 
his character and his mental and physical 
vigor commended him to those about him, and 
responsibility and military command were put 



WASHINGTON 3 

in his hands at an age when most young men 
are just leaving college. As the times grew 
threatening on the frontier, he was sent on a 
perilous mission to the Indians, in which, after 
passing through many hardships and dangers, 
he achieved success. When the troubles came 
with France it was by the soldiers under his 
command that the first shots were fired in the 
war which was to determine whether the North 
American continent should be French or English. 
In his earliest expedition he was defeated by the 
enemy. Later he was with Braddock, and it was 
he who tried to rally the broken English army on 
the stricken held near Fort Duquesne. On 
that day of surprise and slaughter he displayed 
not only cool courage but the reckless daring 
which was one of his chief characteristics. He 
so exposed himself that bullets passed through 
his coat and hat, and the Indians and the French 
who tried to bring him down thought he bore a 
charmed life. He afterwards served with distinc- 
tion all through the French war, and when peace 
came he went back to the estate which he had 
inherited from his brother, the most admired man 
in Virginia. 

At that time he married, and during the ensu- 
ing years he lived the life of a Virginia planter, 
successful in his private affairs and serving the 
public effectively but quietly as a member of the 



4 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

House of Burgesses. When the troubles with 
the mother country began to thicken he was slow 
to take extreme ground, but he never wavered 
in his belief that all attempts to oppress the colo- 
nies should be resisted, and when he once took 
up his position there was no shadow of turning. 
He was one of Virginia's delegates to the first 
Continental Congress, and, although he said but 
little, he was regarded by all the representatives 
from the other colonies as the strongest man 
among them. There was something about him 
even then which commanded the respect and the 
confidence of every one who came in contact 
with him. 

It was from New England, far removed from 
his own State, that the demand came for his 
appointment as commander-in-chief of the Amer- 
ican army. Silently he accepted the duty, and, 
leaving Philadelphia, took command of the army 
at Cambridge. There is no need to trace him 
through the events that followed. From the time 
when he drew his sword under the famous elm 
tree, he was the embodiment of the American 
Revolution, and without him that revolution would 
have failed almost at the start. How he carried 
it to victory through defeat and trial and every 
possible obstacle is known to all men. 

When it was all over he found himself facing- a 
new situation. He was the idol of the country 



WASHINGTON 5 

and of his soldiers. The army was unpaid, and 
the veteran troops, with arms in their hands, were 
eager to have him take control of the disordered 
country as Cromwell had done in England a little 
more than a century before. With the army at 
his back, and supported by the great forces which, 
in every community, desire order before every- 
thing else, and are ready to assent to any arrange- 
ment which will bring peace and quiet, nothing 
would have been easier than for Washington to 
have made himself the ruler of the new nation. 
But that was not his conception of duty, and he 
not only refused to have anything to do with such 
a movement himself, but he repressed, by his 
dominant personal influence, all such intentions 
on the part of the army. On the 23d of Decem- 
ber, 1783, he met the Congress at Annapolis, and 
there resigned his commission. What he then 
said is one of the two most memorable speeches 
ever made in the United States, and is also mem- 
orable for its meaning and spirit among all 
speeches ever made by men. He spoke as 
follows : 

Mr. President : — The great events on which my resigna- 
tion depended having at length taken place, I have now the 
honor of offering my sincere congratulations to Congress, and 
of presenting myself before them, to surrender into their hands 
the trust committed to me and to claim the indulgence of 
retiring from the service of my country. 

Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sov- 



6 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

ereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United 
States of becoming a respectable nation, I resign with satisfac- 
tion the appointment I accepted with diffidence ; a diffidence 
in my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which, how- 
ever, was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our 
cause, the support of the supreme power of the Union, and the 
patronage of Heaven. 

The successful termination of the war has verified the most 
sanguine expectations, and my gratitude for the interposition 
of Providence and the assistance I have received from my 
countrymen increases with every review of the momentous 
contest. 

While I repeat my obligations to the Army in general, I 
should do injustice to my own feelings not to acknowledge, in 
this place, the peculiar services and distinguished merits of the 
Gentlemen who have been attached to my person during the 
war. It was impossible that the choice of confidential officers 
to compose my family should have been more fortunate. Per- 
mit me, sir, to recommend in particular those who have con- 
tinued in service to the present moment as worthy of the favor- 
able notice and patronage of Congress. 

I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn 
act of my official life by commending the interests of our 
dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, and those 
who have the superintendence of them to His holy keeping. 

Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from 
the great theatre of action, and, bidding an affectionate fare- 
well to this august body, under whose orders I have so long 
acted, I here offer my commission and take my leave of all 
the employments of public life. 

The great master of English fiction, writing of 
this scene at Annapolis, says: "Which was the 
most splendid spectacle ever witnessed — the 
opening feast of Prince George in London, or the 



WASHINGTON 7 

resignation of Washington ? Which is the noble 
character for after ages to admire — yon fribble 
dancing in lace and spangles, or yonder hero who 
sheathes his sword after a life of spotless honor, 
a purity unreproached, a courage indomitable and 
a consummate victory ? " 

Washington did not refuse the dictatorship, or, 
rather, the opportunity to take control of the 
country, because he feared heavy responsibility, 
but solely because, as a high-minded and patriotic 
man, he did not believe in meeting the situation 
in that way. He was, moreover, entirely devoid 
of personal ^ambition, and had no vulgar longing 
for personal) power. After resigning his commis- 
sion he returned quietly to Mount Vernon, but 
he did not hold himself aloof from public affairs. 
On the contrary, he watched their course with the 
utmost anxiety. He saw the feeble Confedera- 
tion breaking to pieces, and he soon realized that 
that form of government was an utter failure. In 
a time when no American statesman except 
Hamilton had yet freed himself from the local 
feelings of the colonial days, Washington was 
thoroughly national in all his views. Out of the 
thirteen jarring colonies he meant that a nation 
should come, and he saw — what no one else saw 
— the destiny of the country to the westward. 
He wished a nation founded which should cross 
the Alleghanies, and, holding the mouths of the 



8 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

Mississippi, take possession of all that vast and 
then unknown region. For these reasons he 
stood at the head of the national movement, and 
to him all men turned who desired a better union 
and sought to bring order out of chaos. With 
him Hamilton and Madison consulted in the pre- 
liminary stages which were to lead to the forma- 
tion of a new system. It was his vast personal 
influence which made that movement a success, 
and when the convention to form a constitution 
met at Philadelphia, he presided over its delibera- 
tions, and it was his commanding will which, 
more than anything else, brought a constitution 
through difficulties and conflicting interests which 
more than once made any result seem well-nigh 
hopeless. 

When the Constitution formed at Philadelphia 
had been ratified by the States, all men turned to 
Washington to stand at the head of the new gov- 
ernment. As he had borne the burden of the 
Revolution, so he now took up the task of bring- 
ing the government of the Constitution into exist- 
ence. For eight years he served as president. 
He came into office with a paper constitution, the 
heir of a bankrupt, broken-down confederation. 
He left the United States, when he went out of 
office, an effective and vigorous government. 
When he was inaugurated, we had nothing but 
the clauses of the Constitution as agreed to by the 




GEORGE WASHINGTON 



WASHINGTON u 

Convention. When he laid down the presidency, 
we had an organized government, an established 
revenue, a funded debt, a high credit, an efficient 
system of banking, a strong judiciary, and an army. 
We had a vigorous and well-defined foreign pol- 
icy ; we had recovered the western posts, which, 
in the hands of the British, had fettered our march 
to the west ; and we had proved our power to 
maintain order at home, to repress insurrection, 
to collect the national taxes, and to enforce the 
laws made by Congress. Thus Washington had 
shown that rare combination of the leader who 
could first destroy by revolution, and who, having 
led his country through a great civil war, was 
then able to build up a new and lasting fabric 
upon the ruins of a system which had been over- 
thrown. At the close of his official service he 
returned again to Mount Vernon, and, after a few 
years of quiet retirement, died just as the century 
in which he had played so great a part was 
closing. 

Washington stands among the greatest men 
of human history, and those in the same rank 
with him are very few. Whether measured by 
what he did, or what he was, or by the effect of 
his work upon the history of mankind, in every 
aspect he is entitled to the place he holds among 
the greatest of his race. Few men in all time 
have such a record of achievement. Still fewer 



12 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

can show at the end of a career so crowded with 
high deeds and memorable victories a life so free 
from spot, a character so unselfish and so pure,' a 
fame so void of doubtful points demanding either 
defense or explanation. Eulogy of such a life is 
needless, but it is always important to recall and 
to freshly remember just what manner of man he 
was. In the first place he was physically a strik- 
ing figure. He was very tall, powerfully made, 
with a strong, handsome face. He was remark- 
ably muscular and powerful. As a boy he was 
a leader in all outdoor sports. No one could fling 
the bar further than he, and no one could ride 
more difficult horses. As a young man he became 
a woodsman and hunter. Day after day he could 
tramp through the wilderness with his gun and 
his surveyor's chain, and then sleep at night 
beneath the stars. He feared no exposure or 
fatigue, and outdid the hardiest backwoodsman 
in following a winter trail and swimming icy 
streams. This habit of vigorous bodily exercise 
he carried through life. Whenever he was at 
Mount Vernon he gave a large part of his time 
to fox-hunting, riding after his hounds through 
the most difficult country. His physical power 
and endurance counted for much in his success 
when he commanded his army, and when the 
heavy anxieties of general and president weighed 
upon his mind and heart. 



WASHINGTON 13 

He was an educated, but not a learned man. 
He read well and remembered what he read, but 
his life was, from the beginning, a life of action, 
and the world of men was his school. He was 
not a military genius like Hannibal, or Caesar, or 
Napoleon, of which the world has had only three 
or four examples. But he was a great soldier of 
the type which the English race has produced, 
like Marlborough and Cromwell, Wellington, 
Grant, and Lee. He was patient under defeat, 
capable of large combinations, a stubborn and 
often reckless fighter, a winner of battles, but 
much more, a conclusive winner in a long war of 
varying fortunes. He was, in addition, what very 
few great soldiers or commanders have ever been, 
a great constitutional statesman, able to lead a 
people along the paths of free government with 
out undertaking himself to play the part of the 
strong man, the usurper, or the savior of society. 

He was a very silent man. Of no man of 
equal importance in the world's history have we 
so few sayings of a personal kind. He was ready 
enough to talk or to write about the public duties 
which he had in hand, but he hardly ever talked 
of himself. Yet there can be no greater error 
than to suppose Washington cold and unfeeling, 
because of his silence and reserve. He was by 
nature a man of strong desires and stormy pas- 
sions. Now and again he would break out, even 



14 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

as late as the presidency, into a gust of anger 
that would sweep everything before it. He was 
always reckless of personal danger, and had a 
fierce fighting spirit which nothing could check 
when it was once unchained. 

But as a rule these fiery impulses and strong 
passions were under the absolute control of an 
iron will, and they never clouded his judgment 
or warped his keen sense of justice. 

But if he was not of a cold nature, still less was 
he hard or unfeeling. His pity always went out 
to the poor, the oppressed, or the unhappy, and 
he was all that was kind and gentle to those 
immediately about him. 

We have to look carefully into his life to learn 
all these things, for the world saw only a silent, 
reserved man, of courteous and serious manner, 
who seemed to stand alone and apart, and who 
impressed every one who came near him with a 
sense of awe and reverence. 

One quality he had which was, perhaps, more 
characteristic of the man and his greatness than 
any other. This was his perfect veracity of mind. 
He was, of course, the soul of truth and honor, but 
he was even more than that. He never deceived 
himself. He always looked facts squarely in the 
face and dealt with them as such, dreaming no 
dreams, cherishing no delusions, asking no impos- 



WASHINGTON 15 

sibilities, — just to others as to himself, and thus 
winning alike in war and in peace. 

He g"ave dignity as well as victory to his coun- 
try and his cause. He was, in truth, a "character 
for after ages to admire." 



DANIEL BOONE 
AND THE FOUNDING OF KENTUCKY 



. . . Boone lived hunting up to ninety ; 

And, what 's still stranger, left behind a name 
For which men vainly decimate the throng, 

Not only famous, but of that good fame, 

Without which glory 's but a tavern song, — 

Simple, serene, the antipodes of shame, 

Which hate nor envy e'er could tinge with wrong; 

'T is true he shrank from men, even of his nation ; 

When they built up unto his darling trees, 
He moved some hundred miles off, for a station 

Where there were fewer houses and more ease : 

But where he met the individual man, 
He showed himself as kind as mortal can. 

The freeborn forest found and kept them free, 
And fresh as is a torrent or a tree. 



And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they, 
Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions, 

Because their thoughts had never been the prey 

Of care or gain ; the green woods were their portions 

Simple they were, not savage ; and their rifles, 
Though very true, were yet not used for trifles. 



Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes 
Of this unsighing people of the woods. 

— Byron. 



DANIEL BOONE 
AND THE FOUNDING OF KENTUCKY 



DANIEL BOONE will always occupy a 
unique place in our history as the archetype 
of the hunter and wilderness wanderer. He was 
a true pioneer, and stood at the head of that class 
of Indian-fighters, game -hunters, forest-fellers, 
and backwoods farmers who, generation after gen- 
eration, pushed westward the border of civili- 
zation from the Alleghanies to the Pacific. As 
he himself said, he was "an instrument ordained 
of God to settle the wilderness." Born in Penn- 
sylvania, he drifted south into western North 
Carolina, and settled on what was then the 
extreme frontier. There he married, built a log 
cabin, and hunted, chopped trees, and tilled the 
ground like any other frontiersman. The Alle- 
ghany Mountains still marked a boundary beyond 
which the settlers dared not go ; for west of them 
lay immense reaches of frowning forest, uninhab- 
ited save by bands of warlike Indians. Occa- 
sionally some venturesome hunter or trapper 



20 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

penetrated this immense wilderness, and returned 
with strange stories of what he had seen and 
done. 

In 1769 Boone, excited by these vague and 
wondrous tales, determined himself to cross the 
mountains and find out what manner of land it 
was that lay beyond. With a few chosen com- 
panions he set out, making his own trail through 
the gloomy forest. After weeks of wandering, 
he at last emerged into the beautiful and fertile, 
country of Kentucky, for which, in after years, 
the red men and the white strove with such obsti- 
nate fury that it grew to be called "the dark and 
bloody ground." But when Boone first saw it, it 
was a fair and smiling land of groves and glades 
and running waters, where the open forest grew 
tall and beautiful, and where innumerable herds 
of game grazed, roaming ceaselessly to and fro 
along the trails they had trodden during countless 
generations. Kentucky was not owned by any 
Indian tribe, and was visited only by wandering 
war-parties and hunting-parties who came from 
among the savage nations living north of the 
Ohio or south of the Tennessee. 

A roving war-party stumbled upon one of 
Boone's companions and killed him, and the others 
then left Boone and journeyed home ; but his 
brother came out to join him, and the two spent 
the winter together. Self-reliant, fearless, and 




DANIEL HOONE IN THE FRONTIER WOODS. AT CLOSK QUARTERS. 



DANIEL BOONE 23 

possessed of great bodily strength and hardihood, 
they cared little for the loneliness. The teeming 
myriads of game furnished abundant food ; the 
herds of shaggy-maned bison and noble-antlered 
elk, the bands of deer and the numerous black 
bear, were all ready for the rifle, and they were 
tame and easily slain. The wolf and the cougar, 
too, sometimes fell victims to the prowess of the 
two hunters. 

At times they slept in hollow trees, or in some 
bush lean-to of their own making ; at other times, 
when they feared Indians, they changed their 
resting-place every night, and after making a fire 
would go off a mile or two in the woods to sleep. 
Surrounded by brute and human foes, they owed 
their lives to their sleepless vigilance, their keen 
senses, their eagle eyes, and their resolute hearts. 

When the spring came, and the woods were 
white with the dogwood blossoms, and crimsoned 
with the red-bud, Boone's brother left him, and 
Daniel remained for three months alone in the 
wilderness. The brother soon came back again 
with a party of hunters; and other parties like- 
wise came in, to wander for months and years 
through the wilderness ; and they wrought huge 
havoc among the vast herds of game. 

In 1 771 Boone returned to his home. Two 
years later he started to lead a party of settlers 
to the new country; but while passing through 



24 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

the frowning defiles of Cumberland Gap, they 
were attacked by Indians, and driven back — two 
of Boone's own sons being slain. In 1775, how- 
ever, he made another attempt ; and this attempt 
was successful. The Indians attacked the new- 
comers ; but by this time the parties of would-be 
settlers were sufficiently numerous to hold their 
own. They beat back the Indians, and built 
rough little hamlets, surrounded by log stockades, 
at Boonesborough and Harrodsburg ; and the per- 
manent settlement of Kentucky had begun. 

The next few years were passed by Boone 
amid unending- Indian conflicts. He was a 
leader among the settlers, both in peace and in 
war. At one time he represented them in the 
House of Burgesses of Virginia ; at another time 
he was a member of the first little Kentucky par- 
liament itself; and he became a colonel of the 
frontier militia. He tilled the land, and he 
chopped the trees himself; he helped to build 
the cabins and stockades with his own hands, 
wielding the long-handled, light-headed frontier 
ax as skilfully as other frontiersmen. His main 
business was that of surveyor, for his knowledge 
of the country, and his ability to travel through 
it, in spite of the danger from Indians, created 
much demand for his services among people who 
wished to lay off tracts of wild land for their own 
future use. But whatever he did, and wherever 



DANIEL BOONE 25 

he went, he had to be sleeplessly on the lookout 
for his Indian foes. When he and his fellows 
tilled the stump-dotted fields of corn, one or more 
of the party were always on guard, with weapon 
at the ready, for fear of lurking savages. When 
he went to the House of Burgesses he carried his 
long rifle, and traversed roads not a mile of which 
was free from the danger of Indian attack. The 
settlements in the early years depended exclu- 
sively upon game for their meat, and Boone was 
the mightiest of all the hunters, so that upon him 
devolved the task of keeping his people supplied. 
He killed many buffaloes, and pickled the buffalo 
beef for use in winter. He killed great numbers 
of black bear, and made bacon of them, precisely 
as if they had been hogs. The common game 
were deer and elk. At that time none of the 
hunters of Kentucky would waste a shot on any- 
thing so small as a prairie-chicken or wild duck ; 
but they sometimes killed geese and swans when 
they came south in winter and lit on the rivers. 
But whenever Boone went into the woods after 
game, he had perpetually to keep watch lest he 
himself might be hunted in turn. He never lay 
in wait at a game-lick, save with ears strained to 
hear the approach of some crawling red foe. He 
never crept up to a turkey he heard calling, with- 
out exercising the utmost care to see that it was 
not an Indian ; for one of the favorite devices of 

3 



26 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

the Indians was to imitate the turkey call, and 
thus allure within range some inexperienced 
hunter. 

Besides this warfare, which went on in the midst 
of his usual vocations, Boone frequently took the 
field on set expeditions against the savages. 
Once when he and a party of other men were 
making salt at a lick, they were surprised and 
carried off by the Indians. The old hunter was 
a prisoner with them for some months, but finally 
made his escape and came home through the 
trackless woods as straight as the wild pigeon 
flies. He was ever on the watch to ward off the 
Indian inroads, and to follow the war-parties, and 
try to rescue the prisoners. Once his own daugh- 
ter, and two other girls who were with her, were 
carried off by a band of Indians. Boone raised 
some friends and followed the trail steadily for 
two days and a night; then they came to where 
the Indians had killed a buffalo calf and were 
camped around it. Firing from a little distance, 
the whites shot two of the Indians, and, rushing 
in, rescued the girls. On another occasion, when 
Boone had gone to visit a salt-lick with his bro- 
ther, the Indians ambushed them and shot the 
latter. Boone himself escaped, but the Indians 
followed him for three miles by the aid of a track- 
ing dog, until Boone turned, shot the dog, and then 
eluded his pursuers. In company with Simon 



DANIEL BOONE 27 

Kenton and many other noted hunters and wil- 
derness warriors, he once and again took part in 
expeditions into the Indian country, where they 
killed the braves and drove off the horses. Twice 
bands of Indians, accompanied by French, Tory, 
and British partizans from Detroit, bearing the 
flag of Great Britain, attacked Boonesborough. 
In each case Boone and his fellow-settlers beat 
them off with loss. At the fatal battle of the Blue 
Licks, in which two hundred of the best riflemen 
of Kentucky were beaten with terrible slaughter 
by a great force of Indians from the lakes, Boone 
commanded the left wing. Leading his men, 
rifle in hand, he pushed back and overthrew the 
force against him ; but meanwhile the Indians 
destroyed the right wing and center, and got 
round in his rear, so that there was nothing left 
for Boone's men except to flee with all possible 
speed. 

As Kentucky became settled, Boone grew rest- 
less and ill at ease. He loved the wilderness ; 
he loved the great forests and the great prairie- 
like glades, and the life in the little lonely cabin, 
where from the door he could see the deer come 
out into the clearing at nightfall. The neighbor- 
hood of his own kind made him feel cramped and 
ill at ease. So he moved ever westward with the 
frontier; and as Kentucky filled up he crossed 
the Mississippi and settled on the borders of the 



28 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

prairie country of Missouri, where the Spaniards, 
who ruled the territory, made him an alcalde, or 
judge. He lived to a great age, and died out on 
the border, a backwoods hunter to the last. 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK AND THE 
CONQUEST OF THE NORTHWEST 



Have the elder races halted ? 
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the 

seas ? 
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson, 

Pioneers ! O Pioneers ! 

All the past we leave behind, 
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world ; 
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, 

Pioneers ! O Pioneers ! 

We detachments steady throwing, 
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, 
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go the unknown 
ways, 

Pioneers ! O Pioneers ! 

The sachem blowing the smoke first towards the sun and then 
towards the earth, 

The drama of the scalp dance enacted with painted faces and gut- 
tural exclamations, 

The setting out of the war-party, the long and stealthy march, 

The single file, the swinging hatchets, the surprise and slaughter 
of enemies. 

— Whitman. 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK AND THE 
CONQUEST OF THE NORTHWEST 

IN 1776, when independence was declared, the 
United States included only the thirteen origi- 
nal States on the sea-board. With the exception 
of a few hunters there were no white men west of 
the Alleghany Mountains, and there was not even 
an American hunter in the great country out of 
which we have since made the States of Illinois, 
Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. All this 
region north of the Ohio River then formed a part 
of the Province of Quebec. It was a wilderness 
of forests and prairies, teeming with game, and 
inhabited by many warlike tribes of Indians. 

Here and there through it were dotted quaint 
little towns of French Creoles, the most impor- 
tant being Detroit, Vincennes on the Wabash, 
and Kaskaskia and Kahokia on the Illinois. These 
French villages were ruled by British officers com- 
manding small bodies of regular soldiers or Tory 
rangers and Creole partizans. The towns were 
completely in the power of the British govern- 



32 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

ment; none of the American States had actual pos- 
session of a foot of property in the Northwestern 
Territory. 

The Northwest was acquired in the midst of 
the Revolution only by armed conquest, and if it 
had not been so acquired, it would have remained 
a part of the British Dominion of Canada. 

The man to whom this conquest was due was 
a famous backwoods leader, a mighty hunter, a 
noted Indian-fighter, George Rogers Clark. He 
was a very strong man, with light hair and blue 
eyes. He was of good Virginian family. Early in 
his youth, he embarked on the adventurous career 
of a backwoods surveyor, exactly as Washington 
and so many other young Virginians of spirit did 
at that period. He traveled out to Kentucky soon 
after it was founded by Boone, and lived there for 
a year, either at the stations or camping by him- 
self in the woods, surveying, hunting, and making 
war against the Indians like any other settler ; but 
all the time his mind was bent on vaster schemes 
than were dreamed of by the men around him. 
He had his spies out in the Northwestern Terri- 
tory, and became convinced that with a small force 
of resolute backwoodsmen he could conquer it for 
the United States. When he went back to Vir- 
ginia, Governor Patrick Henry entered heartily 
into Clark's schemes and gave him authority to fit 
out a force for his purpose. 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 33 

In 1778, after encountering endless difficulties 
and delays, he finally raised a hundred and fifty 
backwoods riflemen. In May they started down 
the Ohio in flatboats to undertake the allotted 
task. They drifted and rowed downstream to the 
Falls of the Ohio, where Clark founded a log- 
hamlet, which has since become the great city of 
Louisville. 

Here he halted for some days and was joined 
by fifty or sixty volunteers ; but a number of the 
men deserted, and when, after an eclipse of the sun, 
Clark again pushed off to go down with the cur- 
rent, his force was but about one hundred and 
sixty riflemen. All, however, were men on whom 
he could depend — men well used to frontier war- 
fare. They were tall, stalwart backwoodsmen, 
clad in the hunting-shirt and leggings that formed 
the national dress of their kind, and armed with 
the distinctive weapon of the backwoods, the long- 
barreled, small-bore rifle. 

Before reaching the Mississippi the little flotilla 
landed, and Clark led his men northward against 
the Illinois towns. In one of them, Kaskaskia, 
dwelt the British commander of the entire district 
up to Detroit. The small garrison and the Creole 
militia taken together outnumbered Clark's force, 
and they were in close alliance with the Indians 
roundabout. Clark was anxious to take the town 
by surprise and avoid bloodshed, as he believed 



34 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

he could win over the Creoles to the American 
side. Marching cautiously by night and gener- 
ally hiding by day, he came to the outskirts of the 
little village on the evening of July 4, and lay in 
the woods near by until after nightfall. 

Fortune, favored him. That evening the offi- 
cers of the garrison had given a great ball to the 
mirth-loving Creoles, and almost the entire pop- 
ulation of the village had gathered in the fort, 
where the dance was held. While the revelry was 
at its height, Clark and his tall backwoodsmen, 
treading silently through the darkness, came into 
the town, surprised the sentries, and surrounded 
the fort without causing any alarm. 

All the British and French capable of bearing 
arms were gathered in the fort to take part in or 
look on at the merrymaking. When his men were 
posted Clark walked boldly forward through the 
open door, and, leaning against the wall, looked 
at the dancers as they whirled around in the light 
of the flaring torches. For some moments no one 
noticed him. Then an Indian who had been lying 
with his chin on his hand, looking carefully over 
the gaunt figure of the stranger, sprang to his feet, 
and uttered the wild war-whoop. Immediately 
the dancing ceased and the men ran to and fro 
in confusion ; but Clark, stepping forward, bade 
them be at their ease, but to remember that 
henceforth they danced under the flag of the 




"ALL DAY LONG THE TROOPS WADED IN ICY WATER." 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 37 

United States, and not under that of Great 
Britain. 

The surprise was complete, and no resistance 
was attempted. For twenty-four hours the Creoles 
were in abject terror. Then Clark summoned 
their chief men together and explained that he 
came as their ally, and not as their foe, and that if 
they would join with him they should be citizens of 
the American republic, and treated in all respects 
on an equality with their comrades. The Creoles, 
caring little for the British, and rather fickle of 
nature, accepted the proposition with joy, and with 
the most enthusiastic loyalty toward Clark. Not 
only that, but sending" messengers to their kins- 
men on the Wabash, they persuaded the people 
of Vincennes likewise to cast off their allegiance 
to the British king, and to hoist the American 
flag. 

So far, Clark had conquered with greater ease 
than he had dared to hope. But when the news 
reached the British crovernor, Hamilton, at De- 
troit, he at once prepared to reconquer the land. 
He had much greater forces at his command than 
Clark had ; and in the fall of that year he came 
down to Vincennes by stream and portage, in a 
great fleet of canoes bearing five hundred fight- 
ing men — British regulars, French partizans, and 
Indians. The Vincennes Creoles refused to fight 

against the British, and the American officer who 

4 



38 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

had been sent thither by Clark had no alternative 
but to surrender. 

If Hamilton had then pushed on and struck 
Clark in Illinois, having more than treble Clark's 
force, he could hardly have failed to win the vic- 
tory ; but the season was late and the journey so 
difficult that he did not believe it could be taken. 
Accordingly he disbanded the Indians and sent 
some of his troops back to Detroit, announcing 
that when spring came he would march against 
Clark in Illinois. 

If Clark in turn had awaited the blow he would 
have surely met defeat ; but he was a greater man 
than his antagonist, and he did what the other 
deemed impossible. 

Finding- that Hamilton had sent home some 
of his troops and dispersed all his Indians, Ciark 
realized that his chance was to strike before Ham- 
ilton's soldiers assembled again in the spring. 
Accordingly he gathered together the pick of his 
men, together with a few Creoles, one hundred 
and seventy all told, and set out for Vincennes. 
At first the journey was easy enough, for they 
passed across the snowy Illinois prairies, broken 
by great reaches of lofty woods. They killed 
elk, buffalo, and deer for food, there being no 
difficulty in getting all they wanted to eat ; and 
at night they built huge fires by which to sleep, 
and feasted "like Indian war-dancers," as Clark 
said in his report. 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 39 

But when, in the middle of February, they 
reached the drowned lands of the Wabash, where 
the ice had just broken up and everything was 
flooded, the difficulties seemed almost insuperable, 
and the march became painful and laborious to a 
degree. All day long the troops waded in the 
icy water, and at night they could with difficulty 
find some little hillock on which to sleep. Only 
Clark's indomitable courage and cheerfulness 
kept the party in heart and enabled them to per- 
severe. However, persevere they did, and at 
last, on February 23, they came in sight of the 
town of Vincennes. They captured a Creole 
who was out shooting ducks, and from him learned 
that their approach was utterly unsuspected, and 
that there were many Indians in town. 

Clark was now in some doubt as to how to 
make his fight. The British regulars dwelt in a 
small fort at one end of the town, where they had 
two light guns ; but Clark feared lest, if he made 
a sudden night attack, the townspeople and In- 
dians would from sheer fright turn against him. 
He accordingly arranged, just before he himself 
marched in, to send in the captured duck-hunter, 
conveying a warning to the Indians and the Cre- 
oles that he was about to attack the town, but 
that his only quarrel was with the British, and 
that if the other inhabitants would stay in their 
own homes they would not be molested. 



40 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

Sending the duck-hunter ahead, Clark took up 
his march and entered the town just after night- 
fall. The news conveyed by the released hunter 
astounded the townspeople, and they talked it 
over eagerly, and were in doubt what to do. The 
Indians, not knowing how great might be the force 
that would assail the town, at once took refuge 
in the neighboring woods, while the Creoles re- 
tired to their own houses. The British knew 
nothing of what had happened until the Ameri- 
cans had actually entered the streets of the lit- 
tle village. Rushing forward, Clark's men soon 
penned the regulars within their fort, where they 
kept them surrounded all night. The next day 
a party of Indian warriors, who in the British in- 
terest had been ravaging the settlements of Ken- 
tucky, arrived and entered the town, ignorant 
that the Americans had captured it. Marching 
boldly forward to the fort, they suddenly found it 
beleaguered, and before they could flee they were 
seized by the backwoodsmen. In their belts 
they carried the scalps of the slain settlers. The 
savages were taken red-handed, and the Ameri- 
can frontiersmen were in no mood to show mercy. 
All the Indians were tomahawked in sight of the 
fort. 

For some time the British defended themselves 
well; but at length their guns were disabled, all 
of the gunners being picked off by the backwoods 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 41 

marksmen, and finally the garrison dared not so 
much as appear at a port-hole, so deadly was the 
fire from the long rifles. Under such circum- 
stances Hamilton was forced to surrender. 

No attempt was afterward made to molest the 
Americans in the land they had won, and upon 
the conclusion of peace the Northwest, which had 
been conquered by Clark, became part of the 
United States. 



THE BATTLE OF TRENTON 



And such they are — and such they will be found : 

Not so Leonidas and Washington, 

Their every battle-field is holy ground 

Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone. 

How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound ! 

While the mere victor's may appal or stun 

The servile and the vain, such names will be 

A watchword till the future shall be free. 

Byron. 



THE BATTLE OF TRENTON 



IN December, 1776, the American Revolution 
was at its lowest ebb. The first burst of enthu- 
siasm, which drove the British back from Concord 
and met them hand to hand at Bunker Hill, which 
forced them to abandon Boston and repulsed their 
attack at Charleston, had spent its force. The un- 
disciplined American forces called suddenly from 
the workshop and the farm had given way, under 
the strain of a prolonged contest, and had been 
greatly scattered, many of the soldiers returning to 
their homes. The power of England, on the other 
hand, with her disciplined army and abundant re- 
sources, had begun to tell. Washington, fighting 
stubbornly, had been driven during the summer 
and autumn from Long Island up the Hudson, and 
New York had passed into the hands of the 
British. Then Forts Lee and Washington had 
been lost, and finally the Continental army had re- 
treated to New Jersey. On the second of Decem- 
ber Washington was at Princeton with some three 
thousand ragged soldiers, and had escaped de- 



46 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

struction only by the rapidity of his movements. 
By the middle of the month General Howe felt 
that the American army, unable as he believed 
either to fight or to withstand the winter, must 
soon dissolve, and, posting strong detachments at 
various points, he took up his winter quarters in 
New York. The British general had under his 
command in his various divisions twenty-five thou- 
sand well-disciplined soldiers, and the conclusion 
he had reached was not an unreasonable one ; 
everything, in fact, seemed to confirm his opinion. 
Thousands of the colonists were coming in and 
accepting his amnesty. The American militia had 
left the field, and no more would turn out, despite 
Washington's earnest appeals. All that remained 
of the American Revolution was the little Conti- 
nental army and the man who led it. 

Yet even in this dark hour Washington did not 
despair. He sent in every direction for troops. 
Nothing was forgotten. Nothing that he could do 
was left undone. Unceasingly he urged action 
upon Congress, and at the same time with indomi- 
table fighting spirit he planned to attack the 
British. It was a desperate undertaking in the 
face of such heavy odds, for in all his divisions he 
had only some six thousand men, and even these 
were scattered. The single hope was that by his 
own skill and courage he could snatch victory from 
a situation where victory seemed impossible. With 



THE BATTLE OF TRENTON 47 

the instinct of a oreat commander he saw that his 
only chance was to fight the British detachments 
suddenly, unexpectedly, and separately, and to do 
this not only required secrecy and perfect judg- 
ment, but also the cool, unwavering courage of 
which, under such circumstances, very few men 
have proved themselves capable. As Christmas 
approached his plans were ready. He determined 
to fall upon the British detachment of Hessians, 
under Colonel Rahl, at Trenton, and there strike 
his first blow. To each division of his little army 
a part in the attack was assigned with careful fore- 
thought. Nothing was overlooked and nothing 
omitted, and then, for some reason good or bad, 
every one of the division commanders failed to do 
his part. As the general plan was arranged, Gates 
was to march from Bristol with two thousand men ; 
Ewing was to cross at Trenton ; Putnam was to 
come up from Philadelphia ; and Griffin was to 
make a diversion against Donop. When the mo- 
ment came, Gates, who disapproved the plan, was 
on his way to Congress ; Griffin abandoned New 
Jersey and fled before Donop ; Putnam did not 
attempt to leave Philadelphia ; and Ewing made 
no effort to cross at Trenton. Cadwalader came 
down from Bristol, looked at the river and the 
floating ice, and then gave it up as desperate. 
Nothing remained except Washington himself 
with the main army, but he neither gave up, nor 



48 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

hesitated, nor stopped on account of the ice, or the 
river, or the perils which lay beyond. On Christ- 
mas Eve, when all the Christian world was feasting 
and rejoicing, and while the British were enjoying 
themselves in their comfortable quarters, Wash- 
ington set out. With twenty- four hundred men 
he crossed the Delaware through the floating ice, 
his boats managed and rowed by the sturdy fisher- 
men of Marblehead from Glover's regiment. The 
crossing was successful, and he landed about nine 
miles from Trenton. It was bitter cold, and the 
sleet and snow drove sharply in the faces of the 
troops. Sullivan, marching by the river, sent word 
that the arms of his soldiers were wet. " Tell your 
general," was Washington's reply to the message, 
" to use the bayonet, for the town must be taken." 
When they reached Trenton it was broad day- 
light. Washington, at the front and on the right 
of the line, swept down the Pennington road, and, 
as he drove back the Hessian pickets, he heard 
the shout of Sullivan's men as, with Stark leading 
the van, they charged in from the river. A com- 
pany of jaegers and of light dragoons slipped 
away. There was some fighting in the streets, 
but the attack was so strong and well calculated 
that resistance was useless. Colonel Rahl, the 
British commander, aroused from his revels, was 
killed as he rushed out to rally his men, and in a 
few moments all was over. A thousand prisoners 



THE BATTLE OF TRENTON 51 

fell into Washington's hands, and this important 
detachment of the enemy was cut off and de- 
stroyed. 

The news of Trenton alarmed the British, and 
Lord Cornwallis with seven thousand of the best 
troops started at once from New York in hot pur- 
suit of the American army. Washington, who had 
now rallied some five thousand men, fell back, skir- 
mishing heavily, behind the Assunpink, and when 
Cornwallis reached the river he found the Ameri- 
can army awaiting him on the other side of the 
stream. Night was falling, and Cornwallis, feeling 
sure of his prey, decided that he would not risk an 
assault until the next morning. Many lessons had 
not yet taught him that it was a fatal business to 
give even twelve hours to the great soldier opposed 
to him. During the night Washington, leaving 
his fires burninsf and taking a roundabout road 
which he had already reconnoitered, marched to 
Princeton. There he struck another British de- 
tachment. A sharp fight ensued, the British divi- 
sion was broken and defeated, losing some five 
hundred men, and Washington withdrew after this 
second victory to the highlands of New Jersey to 
rest and recruit. 

Frederick the Great is reported to have said 
that this was the most brilliant campaign of the 
century. With a force very much smaller than 
that of the enemy, Washington had succeeded in 



52 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

striking the British at two places with superior 
forces at each point of contact. At Trenton he 
had the benefit of a surprise, but the second time 
he was between two hostile armies. He was 
ready to fight Cornwallis when the latter reached 
the Assunpink, trusting to the strength of his 
position to make up for his inferiority of numbers. 
But when Cornwallis gave him the delay of a 
night, Washington, seeing the advantage offered 
by his enemy's mistake, at once changed his 
whole plan, and, turning in his tracks, fell upon 
the smaller of the two forces opposed to him, 
wrecking and defeating it before the outgeneraled 
Cornwallis could get up with the main army. 
Washington had thus shown the highest form of 
military skill, for there is nothing that requires so 
much judgment and knowledge, so much certainty 
of movement and quick decision, as to meet a 
superior enemy at different points, force the fight- 
ing, and at each point to outnumber and over- 
whelm him. 

But the military part of this great campaign 
was not all. Many great soldiers have not been 
statesmen, and have failed to realize the political 
necessities of the situation. Washington pre- 
sented the rare combination of a great soldier and 
a great statesman as well. He aimed not only 
to win battles, but by his operations in the field 
to influence the political situation and affect pub- 



THE BATTLE OF TRENTON 53 

lie opinion. The American Revolution was going 
to pieces. Unless some decisive victory could be 
won immediately, it would have come to an end 
in the winter of 1776-77. This Washington 
knew, and it was this which nerved his arm. The 
results justified his forethought. The victories of 
Trenton and Princeton restored the failing spirits 
of the people, and, what was hardly less impor- 
tant, produced a deep impression in Europe in 
favor of the colonies. The country, which had 
lost heart, and become supine and almost hos- 
tile, revived. The militia again took the field. 
Outlying parties of the British were attacked 
and cut off, and recruits once more began to 
come in to the Continental army. The Revolu- 
tion was saved. That the English colonies in 
North America would have broken away from 
the mother country sooner or later cannot be 
doubted, but that particular Revolution of 1776 
would have failed within a year, had it not been 
for Washington. It is not, however, merely the 
fact that he was a great soldier and statesman 
which we should remember. The most memo- 
rable thing to us, and to all men, is the heroic 
spirit of the man, which rose in those dreary De- 
cember days to its greatest height, under condi- 
tions so adverse that they had crushed the hope 
of every one else. Let it be remembered, also, 
that it was not a spirit of desperation or of ig- 



54 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

norance, a reckless daring which did not count 
the cost. No one knew better than Washington 
— no one, indeed, so well — the exact state of 
affairs ; for he, conspicuously among great men, 
always looked facts fearlessly in the face, and 
never deceived himself. He was under no illu- 
sions, and it was this high quality of mind as 
much as any other which enabled him to win 
victories. 

How he really felt we know from what he wrote 
to Congress on December 20, when he said : " It 
may be thought that I am going a good deal out 
of the line of my duty to adopt these measures or 
to advise thus freely. A character to lose, an es- 
tate to forfeit, the inestimable blessing of liberty 
at stake, and a life devoted, must be my excuse." 
These were the thoughts in his mind when he 
was planning this masterly campaign. These 
same thoughts, we may readily believe, were with 
him when his boat was making its way through 
the ice of the Delaware on Christmas Eve. It 
was a very solemn moment,. and he was the only 
man in the darkness of that night who fully un- 
derstood what was at stake ; but then, as always, 
he was calm and serious, with a high courage 
which nothing could depress. 

The familiar picture of a later day depicts 
Washington crossing the Delaware at the head 
of his soldiers. He is standing up in the boat, 



THE BATTLE OF TRENTON 



55 



looking forward in the teeth of the storm. It 
matters little whether the work of the painter is 
in exact accordance with the real scene or not. 
The daring courage, the high resolve, the stern 
look forward and onward, which the artist strove 
to show in the great leader, are all vitally true. 
For we may be sure that the man who led that 
well-planned but desperate assault, surrounded 
by darker conditions than the storms of nature 
which gathered about his boat, and carrying with 
him the fortunes of his country, was at that mo- 
ment one of the most heroic figures in history. 




THE MARCH TO TRENTON. 



BENNINGTON 



We are but warriors for the working-day ; 
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd 
With rainy marching in the painful field ; 
There 's not a piece of feather in our host 
(Good argument, I hope, we shall not fly), 
And time hath worn us into slovenry. 
But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim, 
And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night 
They '11 be in fresher robes. 

— Henry V. 



T 



BENNINGTON 



*HE battle of Saratoga is included by Sir Ed- 
X ward Creasy among his fifteen decisive battles 
which have, by their result, affected the history of 
the world. It is true that the American Revolu- 
tion was saved by Washington in the remarkable 
Princeton and Trenton campaign, but it is equally 
true that the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, 
in the following autumn, turned the scale deci- 
sively in favor of the colonists by the impression 
which it made in Europe. It was the destruction 
of Burgoyne's army which determined France to 
aid the Americans against England. Hence came 
the French alliance, the French troops, and, what 
was of far more importance, a French fleet, by 
which Washington was finally able to get control 
of the sea, and in this way cut off Cornwallis at 
Yorktown and brine the Revolution to a successful 
close. That which led, however, more directly 
than anything else to the final surrender at Sara- 
toga was the fight at Bennington, by which Bur- 
goyne's army was severely crippled and weakened, 
and by which also, the hardy militia of the North- 



60 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

eastern States were led to turn out in large num- 
bers and join the army of Gates. 

The English ministry had built great hopes upon 
Burgoyne's expedition, and neither expense nor 
effort had been spared to make it successful. He 
was amply furnished with money and supplies as 
well as with English and German troops, the lat- 
ter of whom we're bought from their wretched little 
princes by the payment of generous subsidies. 
With an admirably equipped army of over seven 
thousand men, and accompanied by a large force 
of Indian allies, Burgoyne had started in May, 
1777, from Canada. His plan was to make his 
way by the lakes to the head waters of the Hudson, 
and thence southward along the river to New 
York, where he was to unite with Sir William 
Howe and the main army ; in this way cutting the 
colonies in two, and separating New England from 
the rest of the country. 

At first all went well. The Americans were 
pushed back from their posts on the lakes, and by 
the end of July Burgoyne was at the head waters 
of the Hudson. He had already sent out a force, 
under St. Leger, to take possession of the valley 
of the Mohawk — an expedition which finally re- 
sulted in the defeat of the British by Herkimer, 
and the capture of Fort Stanwix. To aid St. 
Leger by a diversion, and also to capture certain 
magazines which were reported to be at Benning- 



BENNINGTON 61 

ton, Burgoyne sent another expedition to the east- 
ward. This force consisted of about five hundred 
and fifty white troops, chiefly Hessians, and one 
hundred and fifty Indians, all under the command 
of Colonel Baum. They were within four miles of 
Bennington on August 13, 1777, and encamped 
on a hill just within the boundaries of the State 
of New York. The news of the advance of Bur- 
goyne had already roused the people of New York 
and New Hampshire, and the legislature of the lat- 
ter State had ordered General Stark with a brigade 
of militia to stop the progress of the enemy on the 
western frontier. Stark raised his standard at 
Charlestown on the Connecticut River, and the 
militia poured into his camp. Disregarding Schuy- 
ler's orders to join the main American army, which 
was falling back before Burgoyne, Stark, as soon 
as he heard of the expedition against Bennington, 
marched at once to meet Baum. He was within 
a mile of the British camp on August 14, and 
vainly endeavored to draw Baum into action. On 
the 15th it rained heavily, and the British forces 
occupied the time in intrenching themselves 
strongly upon the hill which they held. Baum 
meantime had already sent to Burgoyne for rein- 
forcements, and Burgoyne had detached Colonel 
Breymann with over six hundred regular troops 
to go to Baum's assistance. On the 16th the 
weather cleared, and Stark, who had been rein- 



62 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

forced by militia from western Massachusetts, de- 
termined to attack. 

Early in the day he sent men, under Nichols 
and Herrick, to get into the rear of Baum's posi- 
tion. The German officer, ignorant of the country 
and of the nature of the warfare in which he was 
engaged, noticed small bodies of men in their shirt- 
sleeves, and carrying guns without bayonets, mak- 
ing their way to the rear of his intrenchments. 
With singular stupidity he concluded that they 
were Tory inhabitants of the country who were 
coming to his assistance, and made no attempt to 
stop them. In this way Stark was enabled to mass 
about five hundred men in the rear of the enemy's 
position. Distracting the attention of the British 
by a feint, Stark also moved about two hundred 
men to the rigiit, and having thus broucrht his 
forces into position he ordered a general assault, 
and the Americans proceeded to storm the British 
intrenchments on every side. The fight was a 
very hot one, and lasted some two hours. The 
Indians, at the beginning of the action, slipped 
away between the American detachments, but the 
British and German regulars stubbornly stood 
their ground. It is difficult to get at the exact 
numbers of the American troops, but Stark seems 
to have had between fifteen hundred and two thou- 
sand militia. He thus outnumbered his enemy 
nearly three to one, but his men were merely 




AT THE BAYONET'S POINT. 



BENNINGTON 65 

country militia, farmers of the New England 
States, very imperfectly disciplined, and armed 
only with muskets and fowling-pieces, without 
bayonets or side-arms. On the other side Baum 
had the most highly disciplined troops of England 
and Germany under his command, well armed and 
equipped, and he was moreover strongly in- 
trenched with artillery well placed behind the 
breastworks. The advantage in the fight should 
have been clearly with Baum and his regulars, 
who merely had to hold an intrenched hill. 

It was not a battle in which either military strat- 
egy or a scientific management of troops was dis- 
played. All that Stark did was to place his men 
so that they could attack the enemy's position on 
every side, and then the Americans went at it, fir- 
ing as they pressed on. The British and Germans 
stood their ground stubbornly, while the New 
England farmers rushed up to within eight yards 
of the cannon, and picked off the men who manned 
the guns. Stark himself was in the midst of the 
fray, fighting with his soldiers, and came out of 
the conflict so blackened with powder and smoke 
that he could hardly be recognized. One desperate 
assault succeeded another, while the firing on both 
sides was so incessant as to make, in Stark's own 
words, a "continuous roar." At the end of two 
hours the Americans finally swarmed over the in- 
trenchments, beating down the soldiers with their 



66 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

clubbed muskets. Baum ordered his infantry 
with the bayonet and the dragoons with their 
sabers to force their way through, but the Ameri- 
cans repulsed this final charge, and Baum himself 
fell mortally wounded. All was then over, and 
the British forces surrendered. 

It was only just in time, for Breymann, who 
had taken thirty hours to march some twenty- four 
miles, came up just after Baum's men had laid 
down their arms. It seemed for a moment as if all 
that had been gained might be lost. The Amer- 
icans, attacked by this fresh foe, wavered ; but 
Stark rallied his line, and putting in Warner, with 
one hundred and fifty Vermont men who had just 
come on the field, stopped Breymann's advance, 
and finally forced him to retreat with a loss of 
nearly one half his men. The Americans lost in 
killed and wounded some seventy men, and the 
Germans and British about twice as many, but 
the Americans took about seven hundred prison- 
ers, and completely wrecked the forces of Baum 
and Breymann. 

The blow was a severe one, and Burgoyne's 
army never recovered from it. Not only had he 
lost nearly a thousand of his best troops, besides 
cannon, arms, and munitions of war, but the de- 
feat affected the spirits of his army and destroyed 
his hold over his Indian allies, who began to desert 
in large numbers. Bennington, in fact, was one of 



BENNINGTON 67 

the most important fights of the Revolution, con- 
tributing as it did so largely to the final surrender 
of Burgoyne's whole army at Saratoga, and the 
utter ruin of the British invasion from the North. 
It is also interesting as an extremely gallant bit of 
fighting. As has been said, there was no strategy 
displayed, and there were no military operations of 
the higher kind. There stood the enemy strongly 
intrenched on a hill, and Stark, calling his undis- 
ciplined levies about him, went at them. He 
himself was a man of the highest courage and a 
reckless fighter. It was Stark who held the rail- 
fence at Bunker Hill, and who led the van when 
Sullivan's division poured into Trenton from the 
river road. He was admirably adapted for the 
precise work which was necessary at Bennington, 
and he and his men fought well their hand-to- 
hand fight on that hot August day, and carried 
the intrenchments filled with regular troops and 
defended by artillery. It was a daring feat of 
arms, as well as a battle which had an important 
effect upon the course of history and upon the 
fate of the British empire in America. 



KING'S MOUNTAIN 



Our fortress is the good greenwood. 

Our tent the cypress tree ; 
We know the forest round us 

As seamen know the sea. 
We know its walls of thorny vines, 

Its glades of reedy grass, 
Its safe and silent islands 
Within the dark morass. 

— Bryant. 



KING'S MOUNTAIN 



THE close of the year 1780 was, in the South- 
ern States, the darkest time of the Revolu- 
tionary struggle. Cornwallis had just destroyed 
the army of Gates at Camden, and his two for- 
midable lieutenants, Tarlton the light horseman, 
and Ferguson the skilled rifleman, had destroyed 
or scattered all the smaller bands that had been 
fighting for the patriot cause. The red dragoons 
rode hither and thither, and all through Georgia 
and South Carolina none dared lift their heads 
to oppose them, while North Carolina lay at the 
feet of Cornwallis, as he started through it with 
his army to march into Virginia. There was no 
organized force against him, and the cause of the 
patriots seemed hopeless. It was at this hour 
that the wild backwoodsmen of the western bor- 
der gathered to strike a blow for liberty. 

When Cornwallis invaded North Carolina he 
sent Ferguson into the western part of the State 
to crush out any of the patriot forces that might 
still be lingering among the foot-hills. Ferguson 
was a very gallant and able officer, and a man of 



72' HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

much influence with the people wherever he went, 
so that he was peculiarly fitted for this scrambling 
border warfare. He had under him a battalion 
of regular troops and several other battalions of 
Tory militia, in all eleven or twelve hundred men. 
He shattered and drove the small bands of Whies 
that were yet in arms, and finally pushed to the 
foot of the mountain wall, till he could see in his 
front the high ranges of the Great Smokies. 
Here he learned for the first time that beyond 
the mountains there lay a few hamlets of fron- 
tiersmen, whose homes were on what were then 
called the Western Waters, that is, the waters 
which flowed into the Mississippi. To these he 
sent word that if they did not prove loyal to the 
king, he would cross their mountains, hang their 
leaders, and burn their villages. 

Beyond the mountains, in the valleys of the 
Holston and Watauga, dwelt men who were stout 
of heart and mighty in battle, and when they 
heard the threats of Ferguson they burned with a 
sullen flame ofano-er. Hitherto the foes against 
whom they had warred had been not the British, 
but the Indian allies of the British, Creek, and 
Cherokee, and Shawnee. Now that the army 
of the king had come to their thresholds, they 
turned to meet it as fiercely as they had met his 
Indian allies. Among the backwoodsmen of this 
region there were at that time three men of special 



KING'S MOUNTAIN j$ 

note : Sevier, who afterward became governor of 
Tennessee ; Shelby, who afterward became gov- 
ernor of Kentucky ; and Campbell, the Virginian, 
who died in the Revolutionary War. Sevier had 
given a great barbecue, where oxen and deer 
were roasted whole, while horse-races were run, 
and the backwoodsmen tried their skill as marks- 
men and wrestlers. In the midst of the feasting 
Shelby appeared, hot with hard riding, to tell of 
the approach of Ferguson and the British. Im- 
mediately the feasting was stopped, and the 
feasters made ready for war. Sevier and Shelby 
sent word to Campbell to rouse the men of his 
own district and come without delay, and they 
sent messengers to and fro in their own neigh- 
borhood to summon the settlers from their log 
huts on the stump-dotted clearings and the hunters 
from their smoky cabins in the deep woods. 

The meeting-place was at the Sycamore Shoals. 
On the appointed day the backwoodsmen gath- 
ered sixteen hundred strong, each man carrying 
a long rifle, and mounted on a tough, shaggy 
horse. They were a wild and fierce people, ac- 
customed to the chase and to warfare with the 
Indians. Their hunting-shirts of buckskin or 
homespun were girded in by bead-worked belts, 
and the trappings of their horses were stained 
red and yellow. At the gathering there was a 
black-frocked Presbyterian preacher, and before 



74 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

they started he addressed the tall riflemen in words 
of burning zeal, urging them to stand stoutly in 
the battle, and to smite with the sword of the 
Lord and of Gideon. Then the army started, 
the backwoods colonels riding in front. 

Two or three days later, word was brought to 
Ferguson that the Back-water men had come 
over the mountains ; that the Indian-fighters of 
the frontier, leaving unguarded their homes on 
the Western Waters, had crossed by wooded and 
precipitous defiles to the help of the beaten men 
of the plains. Ferguson at once fell back, send- 
ing out messengers for help. When he came to 
King's Mountain, a wooded, hog-back hill on the 
border line between North and South Carolina, 
he camped on its top, deeming that there he was 
safe, for he supposed that before the backwoods- 
men could come near enough to attack him help 
would reach him. But the backwoods leaders 
felt as keenly as he the need of haste, and choos- 
ing out nine hundred picked men, the best war- 
riors of their force, and the best mounted and 
armed, they made a long forced march to assail 
Ferguson before help could come to him. All 
night long they rode the dim forest trails and 
splashed across the fords of the rushing rivers. 
All the next day, October 16, they rode, until in 
mid-afternoon, just as a heavy shower cleared 
away, they came in sight of King's Mountain. 



nana 


4 C'a -V 1 ■ 


n ehh 


1^ 7 « tfsTjt 


^"?vl5 


ii,'X'.'*'"S^^ 




KING'S MOUNTAIN 77 

The little armies were about equal in numbers. 
Ferguson's regulars were armed with the bayonet, 
and so were some of his Tory militia, whereas 
the Americans had not a bayonet among them ; 
but they were picked men, confident in their skill 
as riflemen, and they were so sure of victory that 
their aim was not only to defeat the British but 
to capture their whole force. The backwoods 
colonels, counseling together as they rode at the 
head of the column, decided to surround the moun- 
tain and assail it on all sides. Accordingly the 
bands of frontiersmen split one from the other, 
and soon circled the craggy hill where Ferguson's 
forces were encamped. They left their horses in 
the rear and immediately began the battle, swarm- 
ing forward on foot, their commanders leading 
the attack. 

The march had been so quick and the attack 
so sudden that Ferguson had barely time to mar- 
shal his men before the assault was made. Most 
of his militia he scattered around the top of the 
hill to fire down at the Americans as they came 
up, while with his regulars and with a few picked 
militia he charged with the bayonet in person, 
first down one side of the mountain and then 
down the other. Sevier, Shelby, Campbell, and 
the other colonels of the frontiersmen, led each 
his force of riflemen straight toward the summit. 
Each body in turn when charged by the regulars 



78 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

was forced to give way, for there were no bayonets 
wherewith to meet the foe ; but the backwoods- 
men retreated only so long as the charge lasted, 
and the minute that it stopped they stopped too, 
and came back ever closer to the ridpe and ever 
with a deadlier fire. Ferguson, blowing a silver 
whistle as a signal to his men, led these charges, 
sword in hand, on horseback. At last, just as he 
was once again rallying his men, the riflemen of 
Sevier and Shelby crowned the top of the ridge. 
The gallant British commander became a fair 
target for the backwoodsmen, and as for the last 
time he led his men against them, seven bullets 
entered his body and he fell dead. With his fall 
resistance ceased. The regulars and Tories hud- 
dled together in a confused mass, while the exul- 
tant Americans rushed forward. A flag of truce 
was hoisted, and all the British who were not 
dead surrendered. 

The victory was complete, and the backwoods- 
men at once started to return to their lop- hamlets 
and rough, lonely farms. They could not stay, 
for they dared not leave their homes at the mercy 
of the Indians. They had rendered a great ser- 
vice ; for Cornwallis, when he heard of the disaster 
to his trusted lieutenant, abandoned his march 
northward, and retired to South Carolina. When 
he again resumed the offensive, he found his path 
barred by stubborn General Greene and his troops 
of the Continental line. 



THE STORMING OF STONY POINT 



In their ragged regimentals 
Stood the old Continentals, 

Yielding not, 
When the grenadiers were lunging, 
And like hail fell the plunging 
Cannon-shot ; 
When the files 
Of the isles 
From the smoky night encampment bore the banner of the ram- 
pant Unicorn, 
And grummer, grummer, grummer, rolled the roll of the drum- 
mer, 

Through the morn ! 

Then with eyes to the front all, 
And with guns horizontal, 

Stood our sires ; 
And the balls whistled deadly, 
And in streams flashing redly 
Blazed the fires ; 
As the roar 
On the shore 
Swept the strong battle-breakers o'er the green-sodded acres 

Of the plain ; 
And louder, louder, louder cracked the black gunpowder, 
Cracked amain ! 

— Guy Humphrey Mc Master. 



THE STORMING OF STONY POINT 

ONE of the heroic figures of the Revolution 
was Anthony Wayne, Major- General of 
the Continental line. With the exception of 
Washington, and perhaps Greene, he was the 
best general the Americans developed in the con- 
test ; and without exception he showed himself to 
be the hardest fighter produced on either side. 
He belongs, as regards this latter characteristic, 
with the men like Winfield Scott, Phil Kearney, 
Hancock, and Forrest, who reveled in the danger 
and the actual shock of arms. Indeed, his eager 
love of battle, and splendid disregard of peril, have 
made many writers forget his really great quali- 
ties as a general. Soldiers are always prompt to 
recognize the prime virtue of physical courage, 
and Wayne's followers christened their daring 
commander " Mad Anthony," in loving allusion 
to his reckless bravery. It is perfectly true that 
Wayne had this courage, and that he was a born 
fighter ; otherwise, he never would have been a 
great commander. A man who lacks the fond- 
ness for fighting, the eager desire to punish his 



82 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

adversary, and the willingness to suffer punish- 
ment in return, may be a great organizer, like 
McClellan, but can never become a great general 
or win great victories. There are, however, plenty 
of men who, though they possess these fine manly 
traits, yet lack the head to command an army ; 
but Wayne had not only the heart and the hand 
but the head likewise. No man could dare as 
greatly as he did without incurring the risk of an 
occasional check ; but he was an able and bold 
tactician, a vigilant and cautious leader, well fitted 
to bear the terrible burden of responsibility which 
rests upon a commander-in-chief. 

Of course, at times he had some rather severe 
lessons. Quite early in his career, just after the 
battle of the Brandywine, when he was set to 
watch the enemy, he was surprised at night by 
the British general Grey, a redoubtable fighter, 
who attacked him with the bayonet, killed a num- 
ber of his men, and forced him to fall back some 
distance from the field of action. This mortifying 
experience had no effect whatever on Wayne's 
courage or self-reliance, but it did give him a 
valuable lesson in caution. He showed what he 
had learned by the skill with which, many years 
later, he conducted the famous campaign in which 
he overthrew the Northwestern Indians at the 
Fight of the Fallen Timbers. 

Wayne's favorite weapon was the bayonet, and, 



THE STORMING OF STONY POINT 83 

like Scott, he taught his troops, until they were 
able in the shock of hand-to-hand conflict to 
overthrow the renowned British infantry, who 
have always justly prided themselves on their 
prowess with cold steel. At the battle of Ger- 
mantown it was Wayne's troops who, falling on 
with the bayonet, drove the Hessians and the 
British light infantry, and only retreated under 
orders when the attack had failed elsewhere. At 
Monmouth it was Wayne and his Continentals 
who first checked the British advance by repul- 
sing the bayonet charge of the guards and gren- 
adiers. 

Washington, a true leader of men, was prompt 
to recognize in Wayne a soldier to whom could 
be intrusted any especially difficult enterprise 
which called for the exercise alike of intelligence 
and of cool daring. In the summer of 1780 he 
was very anxious to capture the British fort at 
Stony Point, which commanded the Hudson. It 
was impracticable to attack it by regular siege 
while the British frigates lay in the river, and the 
defenses were so strong that open assault by day- 
light was equally out of the question. Accord- 
ingly Washington suggested to Wayne that he 
try a night attack. Wayne eagerly caught at the 
idea. It was exactly the kind of enterprise in 
which he delighted. The fort was on a rocky 
promontory, surrounded on three sides by water, 



84 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

and on the fourth by a neck of land, which was 
for the most part mere morass. It was across 
this neck of land that any attacking column had 
to move. The garrison was six hundred strong. 
To deliver the assault Wayne took nine hundred 
men. 

The American army was camped about fourteen 
miles from Stony Point. One July afternoon 
Wayne started, and led his troops in single file 
along the narrow rocky roads, reaching the hills 
on the mainland near the fort after nightfall. He 
divided his force into two columns, to advance one 
along each side of the neck, detaching- two com- 
panies of North Carolina troops to move in 
between the two columns and make a false at- 
tack. The rest of the force consisted of New 
Englanders, Pennsylvanians, and Virginians. 
Each attacking column was divided into three 
parts, a forlorn hope of twenty men leading, 
which was followed by an advance guard of one 
hundred and twenty, and then by the main 
body. At the time commanding officers still 
carried spontoons, and other old-time weapons, 
and Wayne, who himself led the right column, 
directed its movements spear in hand. 

It was nearly midnight when the Americans 
began to press along the causeways toward the 
fort. Before they were near the walls they were 
discovered, and the British opened a heavy fire of 



THE STORMING OF STONY POINT 87 

great guns and musketry, to which the Caro- 
linians, who were advancing between the two 
columns, responded in their turn, according to 
orders; but the men in the columns were forbidden 
to fire. Wayne had warned them that their work 
must be done with the bayonet, and their muskets 
were not even loaded. Moreover, so strict was 
the discipline that no one was allowed to leave the 
ranks, and when one of the men did so an officer 
promptly ran him through the body. 

No sooner had the British opened fire than the 
charging columns broke into a run, and in a mo- 
ment the forlorn hopes plunged into the abattis 
of fallen timber which the British had constructed 
just without the walls. On the left, the forlorn 
hope was very roughly handled, no less than sev- 
enteen of the twenty men being either killed or 
wounded, but as the columns came up both burst 
through the down timber and swarmed up the 
long, sloping embankments of the fort. The Brit- 
ish fought well, cheering loudly as their volleys 
rang, but the Americans would not be denied, and 
pushed silently on to end the contest with the 
bayonet. A bullet struck Wayne in the head. He 
fell, but struggled to his feet and forward, two of 
his officers supporting him. A rumor went among 
the men that he was dead, but it only impelled 
them to charge home more fiercely than ever. 

With a rush the troops swept to the top of the 



88 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

wall. A fierce but short fight followed in the in- 
tense darkness, which was lit only by the flashes 
from the British muskets. The Americans did not 
fire, trusting solely to the bayonet. The two col- 
umns had kept almost equal pace, and they swept 
into the fort from opposite sides at the same mo- 
ment. The three men who first got over the walls 
were all wounded, but one of them hauled down 
the British flag. The Americans had the advan- 
tage which always comes from delivering an at- 
tack that is thrust home. Their muskets were 
unloaded and they could not hesitate ; so, running 
boldly into close quarters, they fought hand to 
hand with their foes and speedily overthrew them. 
For a moment the bayonets flashed and played ; 
then the British lines broke as their assailants 
thronged against them, and the struggle was over. 
The Americans had lost a hundred in killed and 
wounded. Of the British sixty-three had been 
slain and very many wounded, every one of the 
dead or disabled having suffered from the bayonet. 
A curious coincidence was that the number of the 
dead happened to be exactly equal to the number 
of Wayne's men who had been killed in the night 
attack by the English general, Grey. 

There was great rejoicing among the Americans 
over the successful issue of the attack. Wayne 
speedily recovered from his wound, and in the joy 
of his victory it weighed but slightly. He had 



THE STORMING OF STONY POINT 89 

performed a most notable feat. No night attack 
of the kind was ever delivered with greater bold- 
ness, skill, and success. When the Revolutionary 
War broke out the American armies were com- 
posed merely of armed yeomen, stalwart men, of 
good courage, and fairly proficient in the use of 
their weapons, but entirely without the training 
which alone could enable them to withstand the 
attack of the British regulars in the open, or to 
deliver an attack themselves. Washington's vic- 
tory at Trenton was the first encounter which 
showed that the Americans were to be feared 
when they took the offensive. With the excep- 
tion of the battle of Trenton, and perhaps of 
Greene's fight at Eutaw Springs, Wayne's feat 
was the most successful illustration of daring and 
victorious attack by an American army that oc- 
curred during the war; and, unlike Greene, who 
was only able to fight a drawn battle, Wayne's 
triumph was complete. At Monmouth he had 
shown, as he afterward showed against Corn- 
wallis, that his troops could meet the renowned 
British regulars on even terms in the open. At 
Stony Point he showed that he could lead them 
to a triumphant assault with the bayonet against 
regulars who held a fortified place of strength. No 
American commander has ever displayed greater 
energy and daring, a more resolute courage, or 
readier resource, than the chief of the hard-fighting 
Revolutionary generals, Mad Anthony Wayne. 



GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 



GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. PARIS. AUGUST 10, 1792. 

Justum et tenacem propositi virum 
Non civium ardor prava jubentium, 
Non vultus instantis tyranni 

Mente quatit solida, neque Auster 
Dux inquieti turbidus Hadrias, 
Nee fulminantis magna manus Jovis: 
Si fractus illabatur orbis, 
Impavidum ferient ruinse. 

—Hot., Lib. III. Carm. III. 



GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 



THE ioth of August, 1792, was one of the 
most memorable days of the French Revo- 
lution. It was the day on which the French mon- 
archy received its death-blow, and was accompa- 
nied by fighting and bloodshed which filled Paris 
with terror. In the morning before daybreak the 
tocsin had sounded, and not long after the mob 
of Paris, headed by the Marseillais, " Six hun- 
dred men not afraid to die," who had been sum- 
moned there by Barbaroux, were marching upon 
the Tuileries. The king, or rather the queen, 
had at last determined to make a stand and to 
defend the throne. The Swiss Guards were there 
at the palace, well posted to protect the inner 
court ; and there, too, were the National Guards, 
who were expected to uphold the government 
and guard the king. The tide of people poured 
on through the streets, gathering strength as they 
went — the Marseillais, the armed bands, the Sec- 
tions, and a vast floating mob. The crowd drew 
nearer and nearer, but the squadrons of the Na- 
tional Guards, who were to check the advance, did 



94 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

not stir. It is not apparent, indeed, that they made 
any resistance, and the king and his family at 
eight o'clock lost heart and deserted the Tuileries, 
to take refuge with the National Convention. 
The multitude then passed into the court of the 
Carrousel, unchecked by the National Guards, 
and were face to face with the Swiss. Deserted 
by their king, the Swiss knew not how to act, but 
still stood their ground. There was some parley- 
ing, and at last the Marseillais fired a cannon. 
Then the Swiss fired. They were disciplined 
troops, and their fire was effective. There was a 
heavy slaughter and the mob recoiled, leaving 
their cannon, which the Swiss seized. The Revo- 
lutionists, however, returned to the charge, and 
the fight raged on both sides, the Swiss holding 
their ground firmly. 

Suddenly, from the legislative hall, came an 
order from the king to the Swiss to cease firing. 
It was their death-warrant. Paralyzed by the order, 
they knew not what to do. The mob poured in, 
and most of the gallant Swiss were slaughtered 
where they stood. Others escaped from the Tuile- 
ries only to meet their death in the street. The 
palace was sacked and the raging mob was in pos- 
session of the city. No man's life was safe, least 
of all those who were known to be friends of the 
king, who were nobles, or who had any connec- 
tion with the court. Some of these people whose 



GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 95 

lives were thus in peril at the hands of the blood- 
stained and furious mob had been the allies of the 
United States, and had fought under Washington 
in the war for American independence. In their 
anguish and distress their thoughts recurred to 
the country which they had served in its hour of 
trial, three thousand miles away. They sought 
the legation of the United States and turned to 
the American minister for protection. 

Such an exercise of humanity at that moment 
was not a duty that any man craved. In those ter- 
rible days in Paris, the representatives of foreign 
governments were hardly safer than any one else. 
Many of the ambassadors and ministers had al- 
ready left the country, and others were even then 
abandoning their posts, which it seemed impossi- 
ble to hold at such a time. But the American 
minister stood his ground. Gouverneur Morris 
was not a man to shrink from what he knew to 
be his duty. He had been a leading patriot in 
our revolution ; he had served in the Continental 
Congress, and with Robert Morris in the difficult 
work of the Treasury, when all our resources 
seemed to be at their lowest ebb. In 1 788 he had 
gone abroad on private business, and had been 
much in Paris, where he had witnessed the begin- 
ning of the French Revolution and had been con- 
suited by men on both sides. In 1790, by Wash- 
ington's direction, he had gone to London and 



96 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

had consulted the ministry there as to whether 
they would receive an American minister. Thence 
he had returned to Paris, and at the beginning 
of 1792 Washington appointed him minister of 
the United States to France. 

As an American, Morris's sympathies had run 
strongly in favor of the movement to relieve 
France from the despotism under which she was 
sinking, and to or-ive her a better and more liberal 
government. But, as the Revolution progressed, 
he became outraged and disgusted by the methods 
employed. He felt a profound contempt for both 
sides. The inability of those who were conduct- 
ing the Revolution to carry out intelligent plans 
or maintain order, and the feebleness of the king 
and his advisers, were alike odious to the man 
with American conceptions of ordered liberty. 
He was especially revolted by the bloodshed and 
cruelty, constantly gathering in strength, which 
were displayed by the revolutionists, and he had 
gone to the very verge of diplomatic propriety in 
advising the ministers of the king in regard to 
the policies to be pursued, and, as he foresaw what 
was coming, in urging the king himself to leave 
France. All his efforts and all his advice, like 
those of other intelligent men who kept their 
heads during the whirl of the Revolution, were 
alike vain. 

On August 10 the gathering storm broke with 



GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 97 

full force, and the populace rose in arms to sweep 
away the tottering throne. Then it was that 
these people, fleeing for their lives, came to the 
representative of the country for which many of 
them had fought, and on both public and private 
grounds besought the protection of the Ameri- 
can minister. Let me tell what happened in the 
words of an eye-witness, an American gentleman 
who was in Paris at that time, and who published 
the following account of his experiences : 

On the ever memorable 10th of August, after viewing the 
destruction of the Royal Swiss Guards and the dispersion of 
the Paris militia by a band of foreign and native incendiaries, 
the writer thought it his duty to visit the Minister, who had 
not been out of his hotel since the insurrection began, and, as 
was to be expected, would be anxious to learn what was pass- 
ing without doors. He was surrounded by the old Count 
d'Estaing, and about a dozen other persons of distinction, of 
different sexes, who had, from their connection with the United 
States, been his most intimate acquaintances at Paris, and who 
had taken refuge with him for protection from the bloodhounds 
which, in the forms of men and women, were prowling in the 
streets at the time. All was silence here, except that silence 
was occasionally interrupted by the crying of the women and 
children. As I retired, the Minister took me aside, and ob- 
served : " I have no doubt, sir, but there are persons on the 
watch who would find fault with my conduct as Minister in 
receiving and protecting these people, but I call on you to 
witness the declaration which I now make, and that is that they 
were not invited to my house, but came of their own accord. 
Whether my house will be a protection to them or to me, God 
only knows, but I will not turn them out of it, let what will 
happen to me " ; to which he added, " You see, sir, they are all 
9 



98 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

persons to whom our country is more or less indebted, and it 
would be inhuman to force them into the hands of the assas- 
sins, had they no such claim upon me." 

Nothing can be added to this simple account, 
and no American can read it or repeat the words 
of Mr. Morris without feeling even now, a hun- 
dred years after the event, a glow of pride that 
such words were uttered at such a time by the 
man who represented the United States. 

After August 10, when matters in Paris became 
still worse, Mr. Morris still stayed at his post. Let 
me give, in his own words, what he did and his 
reasons for it : 

The different ambassadors and ministers are all taking their 
flight, and if I stay I shall be alone. I mean, however, to stay, 
unless circumstances should command me away, because, in 
the admitted case that my letters of credence are to the mon- 
archy, and not to the Republic of France, it becomes a matter 
of indifference whether I remain in this country or go to Eng- 
land during the time which may be needful to obtain your 
orders, or to produce a settlement of affairs here. Going hence, 
however, would look like taking part against the late Revolu- 
tion, and I am not only unauthorized in this respect, but I am 
bound to suppose that if the great majority of the nation adhere 
to the new form, the United States will approve thereof; be- 
cause, in the first place, we have no right to prescribe to this 
country the government they shall adopt, and next, because 
the basis of our own Constitution is the indefeasible right of the 
people to establish it. 

Among those who are leaving Paris is the Venetian ambas- 
sador. He was furnished with passports from the Office of 
Foreign Affairs, but he was, nevertheless, stopped at the bar- 



GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 99 

rier, was conducted to the Hotel de Ville, was there questioned 
for hours, and his carriages examined and searched. This 
violation of the rights of ambassadors could not fail, as you may 
suppose, to make an impression. It has been broadly hinted 
to me that the honor of my country and my own require that 
I should go away. But I am of a different opinion, and rather 
think that those who give such hints are somewhat influenced 
by fear. It is true that the position is not without danger, but 
I presume that when the President did me the honor of naming 
me to this embassy, it was not for my personal pleasure or 
safety, but to promote the interests of my country. These, 
therefore, I shall continue to pursue to the best of my judg- 
ment, and as to consequences, they are in the hand of God. 

He remained there until his successor arrived. 
When all others fled, he was faithful, and such 
conduct should never be forgotten. Mr. Morris 
not only risked his life, but he took a heavy re- 
sponsibility, and laid himself open to severe attack 
for having protected defenseless people against 
the assaults of the mob. But his courageous hu- 
manity is something which should ever be remem- 
bered, and ought always to be characteristic of 
the men who represent the United States in 
foreign countries. When we recall the French 
Revolution, it is cheering to think of that fearless 
figure of the American minister, standing firm and 
calm in the midst of those awful scenes, with 
sacked palaces, slaughtered soldiers, and a blood- 
stained mob about him, regardless of danger to 
himself, determined to do his duty to his country, 
and to those to whom his country was indebted. 



THE BURNING OF THE 
"PHILADELPHIA" 



And say besides, that in Aleppo once, 
Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk 
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state, 
I took by the throat the circumcised dog 
And smote him, thus. 

— Othello. 



THE BURNING OF THE 
"PHILADELPHIA" 



IT is difficult to conceive that there ever was a 
time when the United States paid a money 
tribute to anybody. It is even more difficult to 
imagine the United States paying blackmail to a 
set of small piratical tribes on the coast of Africa. 
Yet this is precisely what we once did with the 
Barbary powers, as they were called — the States of 
Morocco, Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, lying along 
the northern coast of Africa. The only excuse to 
be made for such action was that we merely fol- 
lowed the example of Christendom. The civilized 
people of the world were then in the habit of pay- 
ing sums of money to these miserable pirates, in 
order to secure immunity for their merchant ves- 
sels in the Mediterranean. For this purpose Con- 
gress appropriated money, and treaties were made 
by the President and ratified by the Senate. On 
one occasion, at least, Congress actually revoked 
the authorization of some new ships for the navy, 
and appropriated more money than was required 



104 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

to build the men-of-war in order to buy off the 
Barbary powers. The fund for this disgraceful pur- 
pose was known as the " Mediterranean fund," 
and was intrusted to the Secretary of State to 
be disbursed by him in his discretion. After we 
had our brush with France, however, in i 798, and 
after Truxtun's brilliant victory over the French 
frigate Ulnsurgente in the following year, it oc- 
curred to our government that perhaps there was 
a more direct as well as a more manly way of 
dealing with the Barbary pirates than by feebly 
paying them tribute, and in 1801 a small squad- 
ron, under Commodore Dale, proceeded to the 
Mediterranean. 

At the same time events occurred which showed 
strikingly the absurdity as well as the weakness of 
this policy of paying blackmail to pirates. The 
Bashaw of Tripoli, complaining that we had given 
more money to some of the Algerian ministers 
than we had to him, and also that we had presented 
Algiers with a frigate, declared war upon us, and 
cut down the flag-staff in front of the residence of 
the American consul. At the same time, and for the 
same reason, Morocco and Tunis began to grumble 
at the treatment which they had received. The fact 
was that, with nations as with individuals, when 
the payment of blackmail is once begun there is no 
end to it. The appearance, however, of our little 
squadron in the Mediterranean showed at once the 



THE BURNING OF THE "PHILADELPHIA" 105 

superiority of a policy of force over one of cow- 
ardly submission. Morocco and Tunis immedi- 
ately stopped their grumbling and came to terms 
with the United States, and this left us free to deal 
with Tripoli. 

Commodore Dale had sailed before the decla- 
ration of war by Tripoli was known, and he was 
therefore hampered by his orders, which permitted 
him only to protect our commerce, and which for- 
bade actual hostilities. Nevertheless, even under 
these limited orders, the Enterprise, of twelve 
guns, commanded by Lieutenant Sterrett, fought 
an action with the Tripolitan ship Tripoli, of 
fourteen guns. The engagement lasted three 
hours, when the Tripoli struck, having lost her 
mizzenmast, and with twenty of her crew killed 
and thirty wounded. Sterrett, having no orders 
to make captures, threw all the guns and ammu- 
nition of the Tripoli overboard, cut away her 
remaining masts, and left her with only one spar 
and a single sail to drift back to Tripoli, as a hint 
to the Bashaw of the new American policy. 

In 1803 the command of our fleet in the Medi- 
terranean was taken by Commodore Preble, who 
had just succeeded in forcing satisfaction from 
Morocco for an attack made upon our merchant- 
men by a vessel from Tangier. He also pro- 
claimed a blockade of Tripoli and was preparing 
to enforce it when the news reached him that 



106 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

the frigate Philadelphia, forty-four guns, com- 
manded by Captain Bainbridge, and one of the 
best ships in our navy, had gone upon a reef in 
the harbor of Tripoli, while pursuing a vessel there, 
and had been surrounded and captured, with all 
her crew, by the Tripolitan gunboats, when she 
was entirely helpless either to fight or sail. This 
was a very serious blow to our navy and to our 
operations against Tripoli. It not only weakened 
our forces, but it was also a great help to the 
enemy. The Tripolitans got the Philadelphia 
off the rocks, towed her into the harbor, and 
anchored her close under the guns of their forts. 
They also replaced her batteries, and prepared to 
make her ready for sea, where she would have 
been a most formidable danger to our shipping. 
Under these circumstances Stephen Decatur, 
a young lieutenant in command of the Enter- 
prise, offered to Commodore Preble to go into 
the harbor and destroy the Philadelphia. Some 
delay ensued, as our squadron was driven by se- 
vere gales from the Tripolitan coast ; but at last, 
in January, 1804, Preble gave orders to Decatur 
to undertake the work for which he had volun- 
teered. A small vessel known as a ketch had 
been recently captured from the Tripolitans by 
Decatur, and this prize was now named the In- 
trepid, and assigned to him for the work he had 
in hand. He took seventy men from his own 



THE BURNING OF THE "PHILADELPHIA" 109 

ship, the Enterprise, and put them on the hi- 
trepid, and then, accompanied by Lieutenant 
Stewart in the Siren, who was to support 
him, he set sail for Tripoli. He and his crew 
were very much cramped as well as badly fed on 
the little vessel which had been given to them, 
but they succeeded, nevertheless, in reaching Tri- 
poli in safety, accompanied by the Siren. 

For nearly a week they were unable to ap- 
proach the harbor, owing to severe gales which 
threatened the loss of their vessel ; but on Feb- 
ruary 16 the weather moderated and Decatur 
determined to go in. It is well to recall, briefly, 
the extreme peril of the attack which he was 
about to make. The Philadelphia, with forty 
guns mounted, double-shotted, and ready for fir- 
ing, and manned by a full complement of men, 
was moored within half a Qrunshot of the Ba- 
shaw's castle, the mole and crown batteries, and 
within range of ten other batteries, mounting, al- 
together, one hundred and fifteen guns. Some 
Tripolitan cruisers, two galleys, and nineteen 
gunboats also lay between the Philadelphia 
and the shore. Into the midst of this powerful 
armament Decatur had to go with his little vessel 
of sixty tons, carrying four small guns and hav- 
ing a crew of seventy-five men. 

The Americans, however, were entirely undis- 
mayed by the odds against them, and at seven 



no HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

o'clock Decatur went into the harbor between the 
reef and shoal which formed its mouth. He 
steered on steadily toward the Philadelphia, 
the breeze getting constantly lighter, and by half- 
past nine was within two hundred yards of the 
frigate. As they approached Decatur stood at 
the helm with the pilot, only two or three men 
showing on deck and the rest of the crew lying 
hidden under the bulwarks. In this way he 
drifted to within nearly twenty yards of the 
Philadelphia. The suspicions of the Tripoli- 
tans, however, were not aroused, and when they 
hailed the Intrepid, the pilot answered that 
they had lost their anchors in a gale, and asked 
that they might run a warp to the frigate and 
ride by her. While the talk went on the In- 
trepid' s boat shoved off with the rope, and pull- 
ing to the fore-chains of the Philadelphia, 
made the line fast. A few of the crew then began 
to haul on the lines, and thus the Intrepid was 
drawn gradually toward the frigate. 

The suspicions of the Tripolitans were now at 
last awakened. They raised the cry of " Ameri- 
canos ! " and ordered off the Intrepid, but it 
was too late. As the vessels came in contact, 
Decatur sprang up the main chains of the Phila- 
delphia, calling out the order to board. He 
was rapidly followed by his officers and men, and 
as they swarmed over the rails and came upon 



THE BURNING OF THE "PHILADELPHIA" m 

the deck, the Tripolitan crew gathered, panic- 
stricken, in a confused mass on the forecastle. 
Decatur waited a moment until his men were be- 
hind him, and then, placing- himself at their head, 
drew his sword and rushed upon the Tripolitans. 
There was a very short struggle, and the Tripoli- 
tans, crowded together, terrified and surprised, 
were cut down or driven overboard. In five min- 
utes the ship was cleared of the enemy. 

Decatur would have liked to have taken the 
Philadelphia out of the harbor, but that was 
impossible. He therefore gave orders to burn 
the ship, and his men, who had been thoroughly 
instructed in what they were to do, dispersed into 
all parts of the frigate with the combustibles 
which had been prepared, and in a few minutes, 
so well and quickly was the work done, the 
flames broke out in all parts of the Philadelphia. 
As soon as this was effected the order was eiven 
to return to the Intrepid. Without confusion the 
men obeyed. It was a moment of great danger, 
for fire was breaking out on all sides, and the 
Intrepid herself, filled as she was with powder 
and combustibles, was in great peril of sudden 
destruction. The rapidity of Decatur's move- 
ments, however, saved everything. The cables 
were cut, the sweeps got out, and the Intrepid 
drew rapidly away from the burning frigate. It 
was a magnificent sight as the flames burst out 



112 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

over the Philadelphia and ran rapidly and 
fiercely up the masts and rigging. As her guns 
became heated they were discharged, one battery 
pouring its shots into the town. Finally the 
cables parted, and then the Philadelphia, a 
mass of flames, drifted across the harbor and 
blew up. Meantime the batteries of the ship- 
ping and the castle had been turned upon the 
Intrepid, but although the shot struck all 
around her, she escaped successfully with only 
one shot through her mainsail, and, joining the 
Siren, bore away. 

This successful attack was carried through by 
the cool courage of Decatur and the admirable 
discipline of his men. The hazard was very 
great, the odds were very heavy, and everything 
depended on the nerve with which the attack 
was made and the completeness of the surprise. 
Nothing miscarried, and no success could have 
been more complete. Nelson, at that time in the 
Mediterranean, and the best judge of a naval ex- 
ploit as well as the greatest naval commander 
who has ever lived, pronounced it " the most 
bold and daring act of the age." We meet no 
single feat exactly like it in our own naval his- 
tory, brilliant as that has been, until we come to 
Cushing's destruction of the Albetnarle in the 
war of the rebellion. In the years that have 
elapsed, and among the great events that have 



THE BURNING OF THE "PHILADELPHIA" 113 

occurred since that time, Decatur's burning of 
the Philadelphia has been well-nigh forgotten ; 
but it is one of those feats of arms which illus- 
trate the hitrh courage of American seamen, and 
which ought always to be remembered. 



THE CRUISE OF THE "WASP" 



A crash as when some swollen cloud 

Cracks o'er the tangled trees ! 
With side to side, and spar to spar, 

Whose smoking decks are these? 
I know St. George's blood-red cross, 

Thou mistress of the seas, 
But what is she whose streaming bars 

Roll out before the breeze ? 

Ah, well her iron ribs are knit, 

Whose thunders strive to quell 
The bellowing throats, the blazing lips, 

That pealed the Armada's knell ! 
The mist was cleared, — a wreath of stars 

Rose o'er the crimsoned swell, 
And, wavering from its haughty peak, 

The cross of England fell ! 

— Holmes. 



THE CRUISE OF THE "WASP" 



IN the war of 1 8 1 2 the little American navy, 
including only a dozen frigates and sloops of 
war, won a series of victories against the Eng- 
lish, the hitherto undoubted masters of the sea, 
that attracted an attention altogether out of pro- 
portion to the force of the combatants or the actual 
damage done. For one hundred and fifty years 
the English ships of war had failed to find fit rivals 
in those of any other European power, although 
they had been matched against each in turn ; and 
when the unknown navy of the new nation grow- 
ing up across the Atlantic did what no European 
navy had ever been able to do, not only the Eng- 
lish and Americans, but the people of Continental 
Europe as well, regarded the feat as important 
out of all proportion to the material aspects of the 
case. The Americans first proved that the Eng- 
lish could be beaten at their own eame on the 
sea. They did what the huge fleets of France, 
Spain, and Holland had failed to do, and the great 



u8 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

modern writers on naval warfare in Continental 
Europe — men like Jurien de la Graviere — have 
paid the same attention to these contests of frig- 
ates and sloops that they give to whole fleet 
actions of other wars. 

Among the famous ships of the Americans in 
this war were two named the Wasp. The first 
was an eighteen-gun ship-sloop, which at the very 
outset of the war captured a British brig-sloop of 
twenty guns, after an engagement in which the 
British fought with great gallantry, but were 
knocked to pieces, while the Americans escaped 
comparatively unscathed. Immediately afterward 
a British seventy-four captured the victor. In 
memory of her the Americans gave the same name 
to one of the new sloops they were building. 
These sloops were stoutly made, speedy vessels 
which in strength and swiftness compared favor- 
ably with any ships of their class in any other 
navy of the day, for the American shipwrights 
were already as famous as the American gunners 
and seamen. The new Wasp, like her sister ships, 
carried twenty-two guns and a crew of one hun- 
dred and seventy men, and was ship-rigged. 
Twenty of her guns were 3 2 -pound carronatles, 
while for bow-chasers she had two 'Tone Toms." 
It was in the year 18 14 that the Wasp sailed from 
the United States to prey on the navy and com- 
merce of Great Britain. Her commander was a 



THE CRUISE OF THE "WASP" 119 

gallant South Carolinian named Captain Johnson 
Blakeley. Her crew were nearly all native Ameri- 
cans, and were an exceptionally fine set of men. 
Instead of staying near the American coasts or 
of sailing the high seas, the Wasp at once headed 
boldly for the English Channel, to carry the war 
to the very doors of the enemy. 

At that time the English fleets had destroyed 
the navies of every other power of Europe, and 
had obtained such complete supremacy over the 
French that the French fleets were kept in port. 
Off these ports lay the great squadrons of the Eng- 
lish ships of the line, never, in gale or in calm, 
relaxing their watch upon the rival war- ships of 
the French emperor. So close was the blockade 
of the French ports, and so hopeless were the 
French of making headway in battle with their 
antagonists, that not only the great French three- 
deckers and two-deckers, but their frigates and 
sloops as well, lay harmless in their harbors, and 
the English ships patroled the seas unchecked in 
every direction. A few French privateers still 
slipped out now and then, and the far bolder and 
more formidable American privateersmen drove 
hither and thither across the ocean in their swift 
schooners and brigantines, and harried the Eng- 
lish commerce without mercy. 

The Wasp proceeded at once to cruise in the 
English Channel and off the coasts of England, 



120 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

France, and Spain. Here the water was traversed 
continually by English fleets and squadrons and 
single ships of war, which were sometimes con- 
voying detachments of troops for Wellington's 
Peninsular army, sometimes guarding fleets of 
merchant vessels bound homeward, and sometimes 
merely cruising for foes. It was this spot, right 
in the teeth of the British naval power, that the 

Wasp chose for her cruising ground. Hither and 
thither she sailed through the narrow seas, cap- 
turing and destroying the merchantmen, and by 
the seamanship of her crew and the skill and vigi- 
lance of her commander, escaping the pursuit of 
frigate and ship of the line. Before she had been 
long on the ground, one June morning, while in 
chase of a couple of merchant ships, she spied a 
sloop of war, the British brig Reindeer, of eigh- 
teen guns and a hundred and twenty men. The 
Reindeer was a weaker ship than the Wasp, her 
guns were lighter, and her men fewer ; but her 
commander, Captain Manners, was one of the 
most gallant men in the splendid British navy, 
and he promptly took up the gage of battle which 
the Wasp threw down. 

The day was calm and nearly still ; only a light 
wind stirred across the sea. At one o'clock the 

Wasp's drum beat to quarters, and the sailors 
and marines gathered at their appointed posts. 
The drum of the Reindeer responded to the chal- 



THE CRUISE OF THE "WASP" 121 

lenge, and with her sails reduced to fighting trim, 
her guns run out, and every man ready, she came 
down upon the Yankee ship. On her forecastle 
she had rigged a light carronade, and coming up 
from behind, she five times discharged this point- 
blank into the American sloop ; then in the light 
air the latter luffed round, firing her guns as they 
bore, and the two ships engaged yard-arm to yard- 
arm. The guns leaped and thundered as the 
grimy gunners hurled them out to fire and back 
again to load, working like demons. For a few 
minutes the cannonade was tremendous, and the 
men in the tops could hardly see the decks for 
the wreck of flying splinters. Then the vessels 
ground together, and through the open ports the 
rival gunners hewed, hacked, and thrust at one 
another, while the black smoke curled up from 
between the hulls. The English were suffering 
terribly. Captain Manners himself was wounded, 
and realizing that he was doomed to defeat unless 
by some desperate effort he could avert it, he 
gave the signal to board. At the call the board- 
ers gathered, naked to the waist, black with pow- 
der and spattered with blood, cutlas and pistol 
in hand. But the Americans were ready. Their 
marines were drawn up on deck, the pikemen 
stood behind the bulwarks, and the officers 
watched, cool and alert, every movement of the 
foe. Then the British sea-dogs tumbled aboard, 



122 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

only to perish by shot or steel. The com- 
batants slashed and stabbed with savage fury, 
and the assailants were driven back. Manners 
sprang to their head to lead them again himself, 
when a ball fired by one of the sailors in the 
American tops crashed through his skull, and he 
fell, sword in hand, with his face to the foe, dying 
as honorable a death as ever a brave man died in 
fighting against odds for the flag of his country. 
As he fell the American officers passed the word 
to board. With wild cheers the fighting sailor- 
men sprang forward, sweeping the wreck of the 
British force before them, and in a minute the 
Reindeer -was in their possession. All of her offi- 
cers, and nearly two thirds of the crew, were killed 
or wounded ; but they had proved themselves as 
skilful as they were brave, and twenty-six of the 
Americans had been killed or wounded. 

The Wasp set fire to her prize, and after retir- 
ing to a French port to refit, came out again to 
cruise. For some time she met no antagonist of 
her own size with which to wage war, and she 
had to exercise the sharpest vigilance to escape 
capture. Late one September afternoon, when 
she could see ships of war all around her, she 
selected one which was isolated from the others, 
and decided to run alongside her and try to sink 
her after nightfall. Accordingly she set her sails 
in pursuit, and drew steadily toward her antago- 
nist, a big eighteen-gun brig, the Avon, a ship 




"THE FIGHTING SAILOR-MEN SPRANG FORWARD." 



THE CRUISE OF THE "WASP" 125 

more powerful than the Reindeer. The Avon 
kept signaling to two other British war vessels 
which were in si«-ht — one an eighteen- sain brie 
and the other a twenty-gun ship ; they were so 
close that the Wasp was afraid they would inter- 
fere before the combat could be ended. Never- 
theless, Blakeley persevered, and made his attack 
with equal skill and daring. It was after dark 
when he ran alongside his opponent, and they 
began forthwith to exchange furious broadsides. 
As the ships plunged and wallowed in the seas, 
the Americans could see the clusters of topmen 
in the rigging of their opponent, but they knew 
nothing of the vessel's name or of her force, save 
only so far as they felt it. The firing was fast 
and furious, but the British shot with bad aim, 
while the skilled American gunners hulled their 
opponent at almost every discharge. In a very 
few minutes the Avon was in a sinking condition, 
and she struck her flag and cried for quarter, 
having lost forty or fifty men, while but three of 
the Americans had fallen. Before the Wasp could 
take possession of her opponent, however, the 
two war vessels to which the Avon had been sig- 
naling came up. One of them fired at the Wasp, 
and as the latter could not fight two new foes, she 
ran off easily before the wind. Neither of her 
new antagonists followed her, devoting themselves 
to picking up the crew of the sinking Avon. 
It would be hard to find a braver feat more 



126 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

skilfully performed than this ; for Captain Blake- 
ley, with hostile foes all round him, had closed 
with and sunk one antagonist not greatly his in- 
ferior in force, suffering hardly any loss himself, 
while two of her friends were coming to her help. 

Both before and after this the Wasp cruised 
hither and thither making prizes. Once she came 
across a convoy of ships bearing arms and mu- 
nitions to Wellington's army, under the care of 
a great two-decker. Hovering about, the swift 
sloop evaded the two-decker's movements, and 
actually cut out and captured one of the trans- 
ports she was guarding, making her escape un- 
harmed. Then she sailed for the high seas. She 
made several other prizes, and on October 9 spoke 
a Swedish brig. 

This was the last that was ever heard of the 
gallant Wasp. She never again appeared, and 
no trace of any of those aboard her was ever 
found. Whether she was wrecked on some desert 
coast, whether she foundered in some furious gale, 
or what befell her none ever knew. All that is 
certain is that she perished, and that all on board 
her met death in some one of the myriad forms 
in which it must always be faced by those who go 
down to the sea in ships ; and when she sank 
there sank one of the most gallant ships of the 
American navy, with as brave a captain and crew 
as ever sailed from any port of the New World. 



THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG 
PRIVATEER 



We have fought such a fight for a day and a night 

As may never be fought again ! 

We have won great glory, my men : 

And a day less or more 

At sea or ashore, 

We die — does it matter when ? 

— Tennyson. 



THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG" 
PRIVATEER 



IN the revolution, and again in the war of 1812, 
the seas were covered by swift-sailing Ameri- 
can privateers, which preyed on the British trade. 
The hardy seamen of the New England coast, and 
of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, turned 
readily from their adventurous careers in the 
whalers that followed the giants of the ocean in 
every sea and every clime, and from trading voy- 
ages to the uttermost parts of the earth, to go 
into the business of privateering, which was more 
remunerative, and not so very much more dan- 
gerous, than their ordinary pursuits. By the end 
of the war of 181 2, in particular, the American 
privateers had won for themselves a formidable 
position on the ocean. The schooners, brigs, 
and brigantines in which the privateersmen sailed 
were beautifully modeled, and were among the 
fastest craft afloat. They were usually armed with 
one heavy gun, the " long Tom," as it was called, 
arranged on a pivot forward or amidships, and 



130 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

with a few lighter pieces of cannon. They carried 
strong crews of well-armed men, and their com- 
manders were veteran seamen, used to brave every 
danger from the elements or from man. So boldly 
did they prey on the British commerce, that they 
infested even the Irish Sea and the British Chan- 
nel, and increased many times the rate of insurance 
on vessels passing across those waters. They also 
often did battle with the regular men-of-war of 
the British, being favorite objects for attack by 
cutting-out parties from the British frigates and 
ships of the line, and also frequently encountering 
in fight the smaller sloops-of-war. Usually, in these 
contests, the privateersmen were worsted, for they 
had not the training which is obtained only in a 
regular service, and they were in no way to be 
compared to the little fleet of regular vessels which 
in this same war so gloriously upheld the honor of 
the American flag. Nevertheless, here and there 
a privateer commanded by an exceptionally brave 
and able captain, and manned by an unusually 
well-trained crew, performed some feat of arms 
which deserves to rank with anything ever per- 
formed by the regular navy. Such a feat was the 
defense of the brig General Armsti'ong, in the 
Portuguese port of Fayal, of the Azores, against 
an overwhelming British force. 

The General A rmstrong- haWed from New York, 
and her captain was named Reid. She had a crew 



THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG" PRIVATEER 131 

of ninety men, and was armed with one heavy 32- 
pounder and six lighter guns. In December, 1 8 1 4, 
she was lying in Fayal, a neutral port, when four 
British war-vessels, a ship of the line, a frigate and 
two brigs, hove into sight, and anchored off the 
mouth of the harbor. The port was neutral, but 
Portugal was friendly to England, and Reid knew 
well that the British would pay no respect to the 
neutrality laws if they thought that at the cost of 
their violation they could destroy the privateer. 
He immediately made every preparation to resist 
an attack. The privateer was anchored close to 
the shore. The boarding-nettings were got ready, 
and were stretched to booms thrust outward from 
the brig's side, so as to check the boarders as they 
tried to climb over the bulwarks. The guns were 
loaded and cast loose, and the men went to 
quarters armed with muskets, boarding-pikes, and 
cutlases. 

On their side the British made ready to carry 
the privateer by boarding. The shoals rendered 
it impossible for the heavy ships to approach, and 
the lack of wind and the bafflino- currents also 
interfered for the moment with the movements of 
the sloops-of-war. Accordingly recourse was had 
to a cutting-out party, always a favorite device 
with the British seamen of that age, who were 
accustomed to carry French frigates by boarding, 
and to capture in their boats the heavy privateers 



132 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

and armed merchantmen, as well as the lighter 
war- vessels of France and Spain. 

The British first attempted to get possession of 
the brig by surprise, sending out but four boats. 
These worked down near to the brig, under pre- 
tense of sounding, trying to get close enough to 
make a rush and board her. The privateersmen 
were on their guard, and warned the boats off; 
and after the warning had been repeated once or 
twice unheeded, they fired into them, killing and 
wounding several men. Upon this the boats 
promptly returned to the ships. 

This first check greatly irritated the British cap- 
tains, and they decided to repeat the experiment 
that night with a force which would render resis- 
tance vain. Accordingly, after it became dark, a 
dozen boats were sent from the liner and the 
frigate, manned by four hundred stalwart British 
seamen, and commanded by the captain of one of 
the brigs of war. Through the night they rowed 
straight toward the little privateer lying dark and 
motionless in the gloom. As before, the privateers- 
men were ready for their foe, and when they came 
within range opened fire upon them, first with the 
long gun and then with the lighter cannon; but 
the British rowed on with steady strokes, for they 
were seamen accustomed to victory over every 
European foe, and danger had no terrors for 
them. With fierce hurrahs they dashed through 



THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG" PRIVATEER 135 

the shot-riven smoke and grappled the brig ; and 
the boarders rose, cutlas in hand, ready to spring 
over the bulwarks. A terrible struorcrle followed. 
The British hacked at the boarding-nets and strove 
to force their way through to the decks of the pri- 
vateer, while the Americans stabbed the assailants 
with their long pikes and slashed at them with their 
cutlases. The darkness was lit by the flashes 
of flame from the muskets and the cannon, and 
the air was rent by the oaths and shouts of the 
combatants, the heavy trampling on the decks, 
the groans of the wounded, the din of weapon 
meeting weapon, and all the savage tumult of a 
hand-to-hand fight. At the bow the British burst 
through the boarding-netting, and forced their way 
to the deck, killing or wounding all three of the 
lieutenants of the privateer ; but when this had 
happened the boats had elsewhere been beaten 
back, and Reid, rallying his grim sea-dogs, led 
them forward with a rush, and the boarding party 
were all killed or tumbled into the sea. This put 
an end to the fight. In some of the boats none 
but killed and wounded men were left. The others 
drew slowly off, like crippled wild-fowl, and disap- 
peared in the darkness toward the British squad- 
ron. Half of the attacking force had been killed 
or wounded, while of the Americans but nine had 
fallen. 

The British commodore and all his officers were 



136 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

maddened with anger and shame over the repulse, 
and were bent upon destroying the privateer at 
all costs. Next day, after much exertion, one of 
the war-brigs was warped into position to attack 
the American, but she first took her station at long 
range, so that her carronades were not as effective 
as the pivot gun of the privateer ; and so well was 
the latter handled, that the British brig was repeat- 
edly hulled, and finally was actually driven off. A 
second attempt was made, however, and this time 
the sloop-of-war got so close that she could use 
her heavy carronades, which put the privateer 
completely at her mercy. Then Captain Reid 
abandoned his brig and sank her, first carrying 
ashore the guns, and marched inland with his men. 
They were not further molested ; and, if they had 
lost their brig, they had at least made their foes 
pay dear for her destruction, for the British had 
lost twice as many men as there were in the whole 
hard-fighting crew of the American privateer. 



THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS 



The heavy fog of morning 

Still hid the plain from sight, 
When came a thread of scarlet 

Marked faintly in the white. 
We fired a single cannon, 

And as its thunders rolled, 
The mist before us lifted 

In many a heavy fold. 
The mist before us lifted, 

And in their bravery fine 
Came rushing to their ruin 

The fearless British line. 

— Thomas Dunn English. 



THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS 



WHEN, in 1 8 14, Napoleon was overthrown 
and forced to retire to Elba, the British 
troops that had followed Wellington into south- 
ern France were left free for use against the 
Americans. A great expedition was organized 
to attack and capture New Orleans, and at its 
head was placed General Pakenham, the brilliant 
commander of the column that delivered the fatal 
blow at Salamanca. In December a fleet of 
British war-ships and transports, carrying thou- 
sands of victorious veterans from the Peninsula, 
and manned by sailors who had grown old in a 
quarter of a century's triumphant ocean warfare, 
anchored off the broad lagoons of the Mississippi 
delta. The few American gunboats were car- 
ried after a desperate hand-to-hand struggle, the 
troops were landed, and on December 23 the ad- 
vance-guard of two thousand men reached the 
banks of the Mississippi, but ten miles below 
New Orleans, and there camped for the night. 



i4o HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

It seemed as if nothing could save the Creole 
City from foes who had shown, in the storming 
of many a Spanish walled town, that they were 
as ruthless in victory as they were terrible in 
battle. There were no forts to protect the place, 
and the militia were ill armed and ill trained. 
But the hour found the man. On the afternoon 
of the very day when the British reached the 
banks of the river the vanguard of Andrew Jack- 
son's Tennesseeans marched into New Orleans. 
Clad in hunting-shirts of buckskin or homespun, 
wearing wolfskin and coonskin caps, and carry- 
ing their long rifles on their shoulders, the wild 
soldiery of the backwoods tramped into the little 
French town. They were tall men, with sinewy 
frames and piercing eyes. Under " Old Hick- 
ory's " lead they had won the bloody battle of 
the Horseshoe Bend against the Creeks ; they 
had driven the Spaniards from Pensacola ; and 
now they were eager to pit themselves against 
the most renowned troops of all Europe. 

Jackson acted with his usual fiery, hasty deci- 
sion. It was absolutely necessary to get time in 
which to throw up some kind of breastworks or 
defenses for the city, and he at once resolved on a 
night attack against the British. As for the Brit- 
ish, they had no thought of being molested. They 
did not dream of an assault from inferior numbers 
of undisciplined and ill-armed militia, who did 



THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS 141 

not possess so much as bayonets to their guns. 
They kindled fires along the levees, ate their 
supper, and then, as the evening fell, noticed a 
big schooner drop down the river in ghostly 
silence and bring up opposite to them. The 
soldiers flocked to the shore, challenging the 
stranger, and finally fired one or two shots at 
her. Then suddenly a rough voice was heard, 
" Now give it to them, for the honor of Amer- 
ica ! " and a shower of shell and grape fell on the 
British, driving them off the levee. The stranger 
was an American man-of-war schooner. The 
British brought up artillery to drive her off, but 
before they succeeded Jackson's land troops 
burst upon them, and a fierce, indecisive struggle 
followed. In the night all order was speedily 
lost, and the two sides fought singly or in groups 
in the utmost confusion. Finally a fog came up 
and the combatants separated. Jackson drew off 
four or five miles and camped. 

The British had been so roughly handled that 
they were unable to advance for three or four 
days, until the entire army came up. When they 
did advance, it was only to find that Jackson had 
made good use of the time he had gained by his 
daring assault. He had thrown up breastworks 
of mud and logs from the swamp to the river. 
At first the British tried to batter down these 
breastworks with their cannon, for they had 



142 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

many more guns than the Americans. A terrible 
artillery duel followed. For an hour or two the 
result seemed in doubt ; but the American gun- 
ners showed themselves to be far more skilful 
than their antagonists, and gradually getting the 
upper hand, they finally silenced every piece of 
British artillery. The Americans had used cotton 
bales in the embrasures, and the British hogs- 
heads of sugar ; but neither worked well, for the 
cotton caught fire and the sugar hogsheads were 
ripped and splintered by the round-shot, so that 
both were abandoned. By the use of red-hot 
shot the British succeeded in setting on fire the 
American schooner which had caused them such 
annoyance on the evening of the night attack ; 
but she had served her purpose, and her destruc- 
tion caused little anxiety to Jackson. 

Having failed in his effort to batter down the 
American breastworks, and the British artillery 
having been fairly worsted by the American, 
Pakenham decided to try open assault. He had 
ten thousand regular troops, while Jackson had 
under him but little over five thousand men, who 
were trained only as he had himself trained them 
in his Indian campaigns. Not a fourth of them 
carried bayonets. Both Pakenham and the troops 
under him were fresh from victories won over 
the most renowned marshals of Napoleon, and 
over soldiers that had proved themselves on a 




ANDREW JACKSON. 



THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS 145 

hundred stricken fields the masters of all others 
in Continental Europe. At Toulouse they had 
driven Marshal Soult from a position infinitely 
stronger than that held by Jackson, and yet 
Soult had under him a veteran army. At Bada- 
joz, Ciudad Rodrigo, and San Sebastian they 
had carried by open assault fortified towns 
whose strength made the intrenchments of the 
Americans seem like the mud walls built by chil- 
dren, though these towns were held by the best 
soldiers of France. With such troops to follow 
him, and with such victories behind him in the 
past, it did not seem possible to Pakenham that 
the assault of the terrible British infantry could 
be successfully met by rough backwoods riflemen 
fighting under a general as wild and untrained 
as themselves. 

He decreed that the assault should take place 
on the morning of the eighth. Throughout the 
previous night the American officers were on the 
alert, for they could hear the rumbling of artillery 
in the British camp, the muffled tread of the bat- 
talions as they were marched to their points in 
the line, and all the smothered din of the prepa- 
ration for assault. Long before dawn the rifle- 
men were awake and drawn up behind the mud 
walls, where they lolled at ease, or, leaning on 
their long rifles, peered out through the fog to- 
ward the camp of their foes. At last the sun rose 



146 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

and the fog lifted, showing the scarlet array of 
the splendid British infantry. As soon as the air 
was clear Pakenham gave the word, and the 
heavy columns of red-coated grenadiers and 
kilted Highlanders moved steadily forward. From 
the American breastworks the great guns opened, 
but not a rifle cracked. Three fourths of the dis- 
tance were covered, and the eager soldiers broke 
into a run ; then sheets of flame burst from the 
breastworks in their front as the wild riflemen 
of the backwoods rose and fired, line upon line. 
Under the sweeping hail the head of the British 
advance was shattered, and the whole column 
stopped. Then it surged forward again, almost 
to the foot of the breastworks ; but not a man 
lived to reach them, and in a moment more the 
troops broke and ran back. Mad with shame 
and rage, Pakenham rode among them to rally 
and lead them forward, and the officers sprang 
around him, smiting the fugitives with their 
swords and cheering on the men who stood. For 
a moment the troops halted, and again came for- 
ward to the charge ; but again they were met by 
a hail of bullets from the backwoods rifles. One 
shot struck Pakenham himself. He reeled and 
fell from the saddle, and was carried off the field. 
The second and third in command fell also, and 
then all attempts at further advance were aban- 
doned, and the British troops ran back to their 



THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS 147 

lines. Another assault had meanwhile been made 
by a column close to the river, the charging sol- 
diers rushing to the top of the breastworks ; but 
they were all killed or driven back. A body of 
troops had also been sent across the river, where 
they routed a small detachment of Kentucky mi- 
litia ; but they were, of course, recalled when the 
main assault failed. 

At last the men who had conquered the conquer- 
ors of Europe had themselves met defeat. Andrew 
Jackson and his rough riflemen had worsted, in 
fair fight, a far larger force of the best of Wel- 
lington's veterans, and had accomplished what 
no French marshal and no French troops had 
been able to accomplish throughout the long war 
in the Spanish peninsula. For a week the sullen 
British lay in their lines ; then, abandoning their 
heavy artillery, they marched back to the ships 
and sailed for Europe. 



JOHN OUINCY ADAMS AND THE 
RIGHT OF PETITION 



He rests with the immortals ; his journey has been long : 
For him no wail of sorrow, but a paean full and strong ! 
So well and bravely has he done the work he found to do, 
To justice, freedom, duty, God, and man forever true. 

— Whittier. 



JOHN OUINCY ADAMS AND THE 
RIGHT OF PETITION 



THE lot of ex- Presidents of the United States, 
as a rule, has been a life of extreme retire- 
ment, but to this rule there is one marked ex- 
ception. When John Ouincy Adams left the 
White House in March, 1829, it must have seemed 
as if public life could hold nothing more for him. 
He had had everything apparently that an Amer- 
ican statesman could hope for. He had been 
Minister to Holland and Prussia, to Russia and 
England. He had been a Senator of the United 
States, Secretary of State for eight years, and 
finally President. Yet, notwithstanding all this, 
the greatest part of his career, and his noblest ser- 
vice to his country, were still before him when he 
gave up the Presidency. 

In the following year (1830) he was told that 
he might be elected to the House of Representa- 
tives, and the gentleman who made the proposition 
ventured to say that he thought an ex- President, 
by taking such a position, " instead of degrading 



152 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

the individual would elevate the representative 
character." Mr. Adams replied that he had "in 
that respect no scruples whatever. No person 
can be degraded by serving the people as Repre- 
sentative in Congress, nor, in my opinion, would 
an ex-President of the United States be degraded 
by serving as a selectman of his town if elected 
thereto by the people." A few weeks later he 
was chosen to the House, and the district con- 
tinued to send him every two years from that time 
until his death. He did much excellent work in 
the House, and was conspicuous in more than one 
memorable scene ; but here it is possible to touch 
on only a single point, where he came forward as 
the champion of a great principle, and fought a 
battle for the right which will always be remem- 
bered among the great deeds of American public 
men. 

Soon after Mr. Adams took his seat in Con- 
gress, the movement for the abolition of slavery 
was begun by a few obscure agitators. It did 
not at first attract much attention, but as it went 
on it gradually exasperated the overbearing tem- 
per of the Southern slaveholders. One fruit of 
this agitation was the appearance of petitions for 
the abolition of slavery in the House of Repre- 
sentatives. A few were presented by Mr. Adams 
without attracting much notice ; but as the pe- 
titions multiplied, the Southern representatives 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 153 

became aroused. They assailed Mr. Adams for 
presenting them, and finally passed what was 
known as the gag rule, which prevented the re- 
ception of these petitions by the House. Against 
this rule Mr. Adams protested, in the midst of the 
loud shouts of the Southerners, as a violation of 
his constitutional rights. But the tyranny of slav- 
ery at that time was so complete that the rule 
was adopted and enforced, and the slaveholders 
undertook in this way to suppress free speech in 
the House, just as they also undertook to prevent 
the transmission through the mails of any writings 
adverse to slavery. With the wisdom of a states- 
man and a man of affairs, Mr. Adams addressed 
himself to the one practical point of the contest. 
He did not enter upon a discussion of slavery or 
of its abolition, but turned his whole force toward 
the vindication of the right of petition. On every 
petition day he would offer, in constantly increas- 
ing numbers, petitions which came to him from 
all parts of the country for the abolition of slavery, 
in this way driving the Southern representatives 
almost to madness, despite their rule which pre- 
vented the reception of such documents when 
offered. Their hatred of Mr. Adams is something 
difficult to conceive, and they were burning to 
break him down, and, if possible, drive him from 
the House. On February 6, 1837, after present- 
ing the usual petitions, Mr. Adams offered one 



154 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

upon which he said he should like the judgment 
of the Speaker as to its propriety, inasmuch as it 
was a petition from slaves. In a moment the 
House was in a tumult, and loud cries of " Expel 
him ! " " Expel him ! " rose in all directions. One 
resolution after another was offered looking to- 
ward his expulsion or censure, and it was not until 
February 9, three days later, that he was able to 
take the floor in his own defense. His speech 
was a masterpiece of argument, invective, and 
sarcasm. He showed, among other things, that 
he had not offered the petition, but had only asked 
the opinion of the Speaker upon it, and that the 
petition itself prayed that slavery should not be 
abolished. When he closed his speech, which 
was quite as savage as any made against him, and 
infinitely abler, no one desired to reply, and the 
idea of censuring him was dropped. 

The greatest struggle, however, came five years 
later, when, on January 21, 1842, Mr. Adams pre- 
sented the petition of certain citizens of Haver- 
hill, Massachusetts, praying for the dissolution of 
the Union on account of slavery. His enemies 
felt that now, at last, he had delivered himself 
into their hands. Again arose the cry for his ex- 
pulsion, and again vituperation was poured out 
upon him, and resolutions to expel him freely in- 
troduced. When he got the floor to speak in his 
own defense, he faced an excited House, almost 




JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 



JOHN OUINCY ADAMS 157 

unanimously hostile to him, and possessing, as he 
well knew, both the will and the power to drive 
him from its walls. But there was no wavering 
in Mr. Adams. " If they say they will try me," 
he said, " they must try me. If they say they 
will punish me, they must punish me. But if they 
say that in peace and mercy they will spare me 
expulsion, I disdain and cast away their mercy, 
and I ask if they will come to such a trial and 
expel me. I defy them. I have constituents to 
go to, and they will have something to say if this 
House expels me, nor will it be long before the 
gentlemen will see me here again." The fight 
went on for nearly a fortnight, and on February 7 
the whole subject was finally laid on the table. 
The sturdy, dogged fighter, single-handed and 
alone, had beaten all the forces of the South and 
of slavery. No more memorable fight has ever 
been made by one man in a parliamentary body, 
and after this decisive struggle the tide began to 
turn. Every year Mr. Adams renewed his motion 
to strike out the gag rule, and forced it to a vote. 
Gradually the majority against it dwindled, until 
at last, on December 3, 1844, his motion pre- 
vailed. Freedom of speech had been vindicated 
in the American House of Representatives, the 
right of petition had been won, and the first great 
blow against the slave power had been struck. 
Four years later Mr. Adams fell, stricken with 



158 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

paralysis, at his place in the House, and a few 
hours afterward, with the words, "This is the last 
of earth ; I am content," upon his lips, he sank into 
unconsciousness and died. It was a fit end to a 
great public career. His fight for the right of 
petition is one to be studied and remembered, and 
Mr. Adams made it practically alone. The slave- 
holders of the South and the representatives of 
the North were alike against him. Against him, 
too, as his biographer, Mr. Morse, says, was the 
class in Boston to which he naturally belonged by 
birth and education. He had to encounter the 
bitter resistance in his own set of the " conscience- 
less respectability of wealth," but the great body 
of the New England people were with him, as were 
the voters of his own district. He was an old 
man, with the physical infirmities of age. His eyes 
were weak and streaming; his hands were trem- 
bling; his voice cracked in moments of excite- 
ment ; yet in that age of oratory, in the days of 
Webster and Clay, he was known as the " old man 
eloquent." It was what he said, more than the 
way he said it, which told. His vigorous mind 
never worked more surely and clearly than when 
he stood alone in the midst of an angry House, 
the target of their hatred and abuse. His ar<ni- 
ments were strong, and his large knowledge and 
wide experience supplied him with every weapon 
for defense and attack. Beneath the lash of his 



JOHN OUINCY ADAMS 159 

invective and his sarcasm the hottest of the slave- 
holders cowered away. He set his back against 
a great principle. He never retreated an inch, 
he never yielded, he never conciliated, he was al- 
ways an assailant, and no man and no body of men 
had the power to turn him. He had his dark 
hours, he felt bitterly the isolation of his position, 
but he never swerved. He had good right to set 
down in his diary, when the gag rule was repealed, 
" Blessed, forever blessed, be the name of God." 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 



He told the red man's story ; far and wide 
He searched the unwritten annals of his race ; 

He sat a listener at the Sachem's side, 

He tracked the hunter through his wild-wood chase. 

High o'er his head the soaring eagle screamed ; 

The wolfs long howl rang nightly ; through the vale 
Tramped the lone bear; the panther's eyeballs gleamed; 

The bison's gallop thundered on the gale. 

Soon o'er the horizon rose the cloud of strife, 
Two proud, sttong nations battling for the prize : 

Which swarming host should mould a nation's life ; 
Which royal banner flout the western skies. 

Long raged the conflict ; on the crimson sod 
Native and alien joined their hosts in vain ; 

The lilies withered where the lion trod, 

Till Peace lay panting on the ravaged plain, 

A nobler task was theirs who strove to win 

The blood-stained heathen to the Christian fold ; 

To free from Satan's clutch the slaves of sin ; 
These labors, too, with loving grace he told. 

Halting with feeble step, or bending o'er 

The sweet-breathed roses which he loved so well, 

While through long years his burdening cross he bore, 
From those firm lips no coward accents fell. 

A brave bright memory ! His the stainless shield 

No shame defaces and no envy mars ! 
When our far future's record is unsealed, 

His name will shine among its morning stars. 

— Holmes. 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 

(1822-1893) 

THE stories in this volume deal, for the most 
part, with single actions, generally with deeds 
of war and feats of arms. In this one I desire to 
give if possible the impression, for it can be no 
more than an impression, of a life which in its con- 
flicts and its victories manifested throughout heroic 
qualities. Such qualities can be shown in many 
ways, and the field of battle is only one of the 
fields of human endeavor where heroism can be 
displayed. 

Francis Parkman was born in Boston on Sep- 
tember^, 1822. He came of a well-known family, 
and was of a orood Puritan stock. He was rather 
a delicate boy, with an extremely active mind and 
of a highly sensitive, nervous organization. Into 
everything that attracted him he threw himself 
with feverish energy. His first passion, when he 
was only about twelve years old, was for chemistry, 
and his eager boyish experiments in this direction 
were undoubtedly injurious to his health. The 
interest in chemistry was succeeded by a passion 

for the woods and the wilderness, and out of this 

163 



1 64 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

came the longing to write the history of the men 
of the wilderness, and of the great struggle be- 
tween France and England for the control of the 
North American continent. All through his col- 
lege career this desire was with him, and while in 
secret he was reading widely to prepare himself 
for his task, he also spent a great deal of time in 
the forests and on the mountains. To quote his 
own words, he was " fond of hardships, and he was 
vain of enduring them, cherishing a sovereign 
scorn for every physical weakness or defect ; but 
deceived, moreover, by the rapid development of 
frame and sinew, which flattered him into the be- 
lief that discipline sufficiently unsparing would 
harden him into an athlete, he slighted the pre- 
cautions of a more reasonable woodcraft, tired old 
foresters with long marches, stopped neither for 
heat nor for rain, and slept on the earth without 
blankets." The result was that his intense energy 
carried him beyond his strength, and while his 
muscles strengthened and hardened, his sensitive 
nervous organization began to give way. It was 
not merely because he led an active outdoor life. 
He himself protests against any such conclusion, 
and says that " if any pale student glued to his 
desk here seek an apology for a way of life whose 
natural fruit is that pallid and emasculate scholar- 
ship, of which New England has had too many 
examples, it will be far better that this sketch had 




FRANCIS PAKKMAN. 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 167 

not been written. For the student there is, in its 
season, no better place than the saddle, and no 
better companion than the rifle or the oar." 

The evil that was done was due to Parkman's 
highly irritable organism, which spurred him to 
excess in everything he undertook. The first 
special sign of the mischief he was doing to him- 
self and his health appeared in a weakness of sight. 
It was essential to his plan of historical work to 
study not only books and records but Indian life 
from the inside. Therefore, having graduated from 
college and the law-school, he felt that the time 
had come for this investigation, which would enable 
him to gather material for his history and at the 
same time to rest his eyes. He went to the Rocky 
Mountains, and after great hardships, living in the 
saddle, as he said, with weakness and pain, he 
joined a band of Ogallalla Indians. With them 
he remained despite his physical suffering, and from 
them he learned, as he could not have learned in 
any other way, what Indian life really was. 

The immediate result of the journey was his 
first book, instinct with the freshness and wild- 
ness of the mountains and the prairies, and called 
by him " The Oregon Trail." Unfortunately, the 
book was not the only outcome. The illness in- 
curred during his journey from fatigue and ex- 
posure was followed by other disorders. The 
light of the sun became insupportable, and his ner- 



i68 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

vous system was entirely deranged. His sight 
was now so impaired that he was almost blind, 
and could neither read nor write. It was a terri- 
ble prospect for a brilliant and ambitious man, 
but Parkman faced it unflinchingly. He devised 
a frame by which he could write with closed eyes, 
and books and manuscripts were read to him. In 
this way he began the history of " The Conspi- 
racy of Pontiac," and for the first half-year the 
rate of composition covered about six lines a day. 
His courage was rewarded by an improvement 
in his health, and a little more quiet in nerves 
and brain. In two and a half years he managed 
to complete the book. 

He then entered upon his great subject of 
" France in the New World." The material was 
mostly in manuscript, and had to be examined, 
gathered, and selected in Europe and in Canada. 
He could not read, he could write only a very 
little and that with difficulty, and yet he pressed 
on. He slowly collected his material and digested 
and arranged it, using the eyes of others to do 
that which he could not do himself, and always 
on the verge of a complete breakdown of mind 
and body. In 1851 he had an effusion of water 
on the left knee, which stopped his outdoor exer- 
cise, on which he had always largely depended. 
All the irritability of the system then centered in 
the head, resulting in intense pain and in a rest- 
less and devouring activity of thought. He him- 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 169 

self says: "The whirl, the confusion, and strange, 
undefined tortures attending this condition are 
only to be conceived by one who has felt them." 
The resources of surgery and medicine were ex- 
hausted in vain. The trouble in the head and 
eyes constantly recurred. In 1858 there came a 
period when for four years he was incapable of 
the slightest mental application, and the attacks 
varied in duration from four hours to as many 
months. When the pressure was lightened a 
little he went back to his work. When work was 
impossible, he turned to horticulture, grew roses, 
and wrote a book about the cultivation of those 
flowers which is a standard authority. 

As he grew older the attacks moderated, al- 
though they never departed. Sleeplessness pur- 
sued him always, the slightest excitement would 
deprive him of the power of exertion, his sight 
was always sensitive, and at times he was bor- 
dering on blindness. In this hard-pressed way 
he fought the battle of life. He says himself 
that his books took four times as long to prepare 
and write as if he had been strong and able 
to use his faculties. That this should have been 
the case is little wonder, for those books came 
into being with failing sight and shattered nerves, 
with sleeplessness and pain, and the menace of 
insanity ever hanging over the brave man who, 
nevertheless, carried them through to an end. 

Yet the result of those fifty years, even in 



i7o HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

amount, is a noble one, and would have been 
great achievement for a man who had never 
known a sick day. In quality, and subject, and 
method of narration, they leave little to be desired. 
There, in Parkman's volumes, is told vividly, 
strongly, and truthfully, the history of the great 
struggle between France and England for the 
mastery of the North American continent, one 
of the most important events of modern times. 
This is not the place to give any critical estimate 
of Mr. Parkman's work. It is enough to say that 
it stands in the front rank. It is a great contri- 
bution to history, and a still greater gift to the 
literature of this country. All Americans cer- 
tainly should read the volumes in which Parkman 
has told that wonderful story of hardship and 
adventure, of fighting and of statesmanship, which 
gave this great continent to the English race and 
the English speech. But better than the liter- 
ature or the history is the heroic spirit of the man, 
which triumphed over pain and all other physical 
obstacles, and brought a work of such value to his 
country and his time into existence. There is a 
great lesson as well as a lofty example in such a 
career, and in the service which such a man ren- 
dered by his life and work to literature and to his 
country. On the tomb of the conqueror of Que- 
bec it is written : " Here lies Wolfe victorious." 
The same epitaph might with entire justice be 
carved above the grave of Wolfe's historian. 



"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 



The muffled drum's sad roll has beat 

The soldier's last tattoo ; 
No more on life's parade shall meet 

That brave and fallen few. 
On fame's eternal camping-ground 

Their silent tents are spread, 
And glory guards with solemn round 

The bivouac of the dead. 

The neighing troop, the flashing blade, 

The bugle's stirring blast, 
The charge, the dreadful cannonade, 

The din and shout are past ; 
Nor war's wild note, nor glory's peal 

Shall thrill with fierce delight 
Those breasts that never more may feel 

The rapture of the light. 

— Theodore O'Hara. 



"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 

THERMOPYLAE; had its messengers of 
death, but the Alamo had none." These 
were the words with which a United States sena- 
tor referred to one of the most resolute and ef- 
fective fights ever waged by brave men against 
overwhelming odds in the face of certain death. 
Soon after the close of the second war with 
Great Britain, parties of American settlers began 
to press forward into the rich, sparsely settled 
territory of Texas, then a portion of Mexico. At 
first these immigrants were well received, but the 
Mexicans speedily grew jealous of them, and op- 
pressed them in various ways. In consequence, 
when the settlers felt themselves strong enough, 
they revolted against Mexican rule, and declared 
Texas to be an independent republic. Immedi- 
ately Santa Anna, the Dictator of Mexico, gath- 
ered a large army, and invaded Texas. The 
slender forces of the settlers were unable to meet 
his hosts. They were pressed back by the Mex- 
icans, and dreadful atrocities were committed by 
Santa Anna and his lieutenants. 



174 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

In the United States there was great enthusiasm 
for the struggling Texans, and many bold back- 
woodsmen and Indian-fighters swarmed to their 
help. Among them the two most famous were 
Sam Houston and David Crockett. Houston 
was the younger man, and had already led an ex- 
traordinary and varied career. When a mere lad 
he had run away from home and joined the Cher- 
okees, living among them for some years ; then 
he returned home. He had fought under Andrew 
Jackson in his campaigns against the Creeks, and 
had been severely wounded at the battle of the 
Horse-shoe Bend. He had risen to the highest 
political honors in his State, becoming governor 
of Tennessee ; and then suddenly, in a fit of moody 
longing for the life of the wilderness, he gave up 
his governorship, left the State, and crossed the 
Mississippi, going to join his old comrades, the 
Cherokees, in their new home along the waters 
of the Arkansas. Here he dressed, lived, fought, 
hunted, and drank precisely like any Indian, 
becoming one of the chiefs. 

David Crockett was born soon after the Revo- 
lutionary War. He, too, had taken part under 
Jackson in the campaigns against the Creeks, and 
had afterward become a man of mark in Tennes- 
see, and gone to Congress as a Whig ; but he 
had quarreled with Jackson, and been beaten for 
Congress, and in his disgust he left the State and 



''REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 175 

decided to join the Texans. He was the most 
famous rifle-shot in all the United States, and the 
most successful hunter, so that his skill was a 
proverb all along the border. 

David Crockett journeyed south, by boat and 
horse, making his way steadily toward the distant 
plains where the Texans were waging their life- 
and-death fight. Texas was a wild place in those 
days, and the old hunter had more than one hair- 
breadth escape from Indians, desperadoes, and 
savage beasts, ere he got to the neighborhood of 
San Antonio, and joined another adventurer, a 
bee-hunter, bent on the same errand as himself. 
The two had been in ignorance of exactly what 
the situation in Texas was ; but they soon found 
that the Mexican army was marching toward 
San Antonio, whither they were going. Near the 
town was an old Spanish fort, the Alamo, in which 
the hundred and fifty American defenders of the 
place had gathered. Santa Anna had four thou- 
sand troops with him. The Alamo was a mere 
shell, utterly unable to withstand either a bom- 
bardment or a regular assault. It was evident, 
therefore, that those within it would be in the ut- 
most jeopardy if the place we.re seriously assaulted, 
but old Crockett and his companion never wav- 
ered. They were fearless and resolute, and 
masters of woodcraft, and they managed to slip 
through the Mexican lines and join the defenders 



176 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

within the walls. The bravest, the hardiest, the 
most reckless men of the border were there ; among 
them were Colonel Travis, the commander of the 
fort, and Bowie, the inventor of the famous bowie- 
knife. They were a wild and ill-disciplined band, 
little used to restraint or control, but they were 
men of iron courage and great bodily powers, 
skilled in the use of their weapons, and ready to 
meet with stern and uncomplaining indifference 
whatever doom fate miofht have in store for them. 
Soon Santa Anna approached with his army, 
took possession of the town, and besieged the 
fort. The defenders knew there was scarcely a 
chance of rescue, and that it was hopeless to 
expect that one hundred and fifty men, behind 
defenses so weak, could beat off four thousand 
trained soldiers, well armed and provided with 
heavy artillery ; but they had no idea of flinch- 
ing, and made a desperate defense. The days 
went by, and no help came, while Santa Anna 
got ready his lines, and began a furious cannon- 
ade. His gunners were unskilled, however, and 
he had to serve the guns from a distance ; for 
when they were pushed nearer, the American ri- 
flemen crept forward under cover, and picked off 
the artillerymen. Old Crockett thus killed five 
men at one gun. But, by degrees, the bombard- 
ment told. The walls of the Alamo were battered 
and riddled ; and when they had been breached 



"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 179 

so as to afford no obstacle to the rush of his 
soldiers, Santa Anna commanded that they be 
stormed. 

The storm took place on March 6, 1836. The 
Mexican troops came on well and steadily, break- 
ing through the outer defenses at every point, 
for the lines were too long to be manned by the 
few Americans. The frontiersmen then retreated 
to the inner building, and a desperate hand-to- 
hand conflict followed, the Mexicans thronging 
in, shooting the Americans with their muskets, 
and thrusting at them with lance and bayonet, 
while the Americans, after firing their long rifles, 
clubbed them, and fought desperately, one against 
many ; and they also used their bowie-knives and 
revolvers with deadly effect. The fight reeled to 
and fro between the shattered walls, each Amer- 
ican the center of a group of foes ; but, for all 
their strength and their wild fighting courage, the 
defenders were too few, and the struggle could 
have but one end. One by one the tall riflemen 
succumbed, after repeated thrusts with bayonet 
and lance, until but three or four were left. Col- 
onel Travis, the commander, was among them ; 
and so was Bowie, who was sick and weak from 
a wasting disease, but who rallied all his strength 
to die fighting, and who, in the final struggle, 
slew several Mexicans with his revolver, and with 
his big knife, of the kind to which he had given 



180 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

his name. Then these fell too, and the last man 
stood at bay. It was old Davy Crockett. Wounded 
in a dozen places, he faced his foes with his back 
to the wall, ringed around by the bodies of the 
men he had slain. So desperate was the fight he 
waged, that the Mexicans who thronged round 
about him were beaten back for the moment, and 
no one dared to run in upon him. Accordingly, 
while the lancers held him where he was, for, 
weakened by wounds and loss of blood, he could 
not break through them, the musketeers loaded 
their carbines and shot him down. Santa Anna 
declined to give him mercy. Some say that when 
Crockett fell from his wounds, he was taken alive, 
and was then shot by Santa Anna's order; but his 
fate cannot be told with certainty, for not a single 
American was left alive. At any rate, after 
Crockett fell the fight was over. Every one of 
the hardy men who had held the Alamo lay still 
in death. Yet they died well avenged, for four 
times their number fell at their hands in the battle. 
Santa Anna had but a short while in which to 
exult over his bloody and hard- won victory. Al- 
ready a rider from the rolling Texas plains, going 
north through the Indian Territory, had told 
Houston that the Texans were up and were striv- 
ing for their liberty. At once in Houston's mind 
there kindled a longing to return to the men of 
his race at the time of their need. Mounting his 



"REMEMBER THE ALAMO" 181 

horse, he rode south by night and day, and was 
hailed by the Texans as a heaven-sent leader. 
He took command of their forces, eleven hundred 
stark riflemen, and at the battle of San Jacinto, 
he and his men charged the Mexican hosts with 
the cry of " Remember the Alamo." Almost im- 
mediately, the Mexicans were overthrown with 
terrible slaughter ; Santa Anna himself was cap- 
tured, and the freedom of Texas was won at a 
blow. 



16 



HAMPTON ROADS 



Then far away to the south uprose 

A little feather of snow-white smoke, 
And we knew that the iron ship of our foes 
Was steadily steering its course 
To try the force 
Of our ribs of oak. 

Down upon us heavily runs, 

Silent and sullen, the floating fort; 
Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, 
And leaps the terrible death, 
With fiery breath, 
From her open port. 

Ho ! brave hearts, that went down in the seas ! 

Ye are at peace in the troubled stream ; 
Ho ! brave land ! with hearts like these, 
Thy flag, that is rent in twain, 
Shall be one again, 
And without a seam ! 

— Longfellow. 



HAMPTON ROADS 

THE naval battles of the Civil War possess an 
immense importance, because they mark 
the line of cleavage between naval warfare under 
the old, and naval warfare under the new, condi- 
tions. The ships with which Hull and Decatur 
and McDonough won glory in the war of 1812 
were essentially like those with which Drake and 
Hawkins and Frobisher had harried the Spanish 
armadas two centuries and a half earlier. They 
were wooden sailing-vessels, carrying many guns 
mounted in broadside, like those of De Ruyter 
and Tromp, of Blake and Nelson. Throughout 
this period all the great admirals, all the famous 
single-ship fighters, — whose skill reached its high- 
est expression in our own navy during the war oi 
181 2, — commanded craft built and armed in a 
substantially similar manner, and fought with the 
same weapons and under much the same condi- 
tions. But in the Civil War weapons and methods 
were introduced which caused a revolution Greater 
even than that which divided the sailing-ship from 

the galley. The use of steam, the casing of ships 

185 



1 86 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

in iron armor, and the employment of the tor- 
pedo, the ram, and the gun of high power, pro- 
duced such radically new types that the old ships 
of the line became at one stroke as antiquated as 
the galleys of Hamilcar or Alcibiades. Some of 
these new engines of destruction were invented, 
and all were for the first time tried in actual com- 
bat, during our own Civil War. The first occasion 
on which any of the new methods were thoroughly 
tested was attended by incidents which made it 
one of the most striking of naval battles. 

In Chesapeake Bay, near Hampton Roads, 
the United States had collected a fleet of wooden 
ships ; some of them old-style sailing-vessels, 
others steamers. The Confederates were known 
to be building a great iron-clad ram, and the 
wooden vessels were eagerly watching for her ap- 
pearance when she should come out of Gosport 
Harbor. Her powers and capacity were utterly 
unknown. She was made out of the former 
United States steam-frigate Merrimac, cut down 
so as to make her fore and aft decks nearly flat, 
and not much above the water, while the guns 
were mounted in a covered central battery, with 
sloping flanks. Her sides, deck, and battery were 
coated with iron, and she was armed with for- 
midable rifle-guns, and, most important of all, with 
a steel ram thrust out under water forward from 



HAMPTON ROADS 187 

her bow. She was commanded by a gallant and 
efficient officer, Captain Buchanan. 

It was March 8, 1862, when the ram at last 
made her appearance within sight of the Union 
fleet. The day was calm and very clear, so that 
the throngs of spectators on shore could see every 
feature of the battle. With the great ram came 
three light gunboats, all of which took part in the 
action, harassing the vessels which she assailed ; 
but they were not factors of importance in the 
fight. On the Union side the vessels nearest 
were the sailing-ships Cumberland and Congress, 
and the steam -frigate Minnesota. The Congress 
and Cumberland were anchored not far from each 
other ; the Minnesota got aground, and was some 
distance off. Owing to the currents and shoals 
and the lack of wind, no other vessel was able to 
get up in time to take a part in the fight. 

As soon as the ram appeared, out of the har- 
bor, she turned and steamed toward the Congress 
and the Cumberland, the black smoke rising- from 
her funnels, and the great ripples running from 
each side of her iron prow as she drove steadily 
through the still waters. On board of the Con- 
gress and Cumberland there was eager anticipa- 
tion, but not a particle of fear. The officers in 
command, Captain Smith and Lieutenant Morris, 
were two of the most gallant men in a service 
where gallantry has always been too common to 



188 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

need special comment. The crews were com- 
posed of veterans, well trained, self-confident, and 
proud beyond measure of the flag whose honor 
they upheld. The guns were run out, and the 
men stood at quarters, while the officers eagerly 
conned the approaching ironclad. The Congress 
was the first to open fire ; and, as her volleys flew, 
the men on the Ctimberland were astounded to 
see the cannon-shot bound off the sloping sides 
of the ram as hailstones bound from a window- 
pane. The ram answered, and her rifle-shells 
tore the sides of the Congress ; but for her first 
victim she aimed at the Cumberland, and, firing 
her bow guns, came straight as an arrow at the 
little sloop-of-war, which lay broadside to her, 
It was an absolutely hopeless struggle. The 
Cumberland was a sailing-ship, at anchor, with 
wooden sides, and a battery of light guns. 
Against the formidable steam ironclad, with her 
heavy rifles and steel ram, she was as powerless 
as if she had been a rowboat ; and from the mo- 
ment the men saw the cannon-shot bound from 
the ram's sides they knew they were doomed. 
But none of them flinched. Once and again they 
fired their guns full against the approaching ram, 
and in response received a few shells from the 
great bow-rifles of the latter. Then, forging 
ahead, the Merrimac struck her antagonist with 
her steel prow, and the sloop-of-war reeled and 



HAMPTON ROADS 191 

shuddered, and through the great rent in her side 
the black water rushed. She foundered in a few 
minutes ; but her crew fought her to the last, 
cheering as they ran out the guns, and sending 
shot after shot against the ram as the latter 
backed off after delivering her blow. The rush 
of the water soon swamped the lower decks, but 
the men above continued to serve their guns until 
the upper deck also was awash, and the vessel 
had not ten seconds of life left. Then, with her 
flags flying, her men cheering, and her guns 
firing, the Ctcmberland sank. It was shallow 
where she settled down, so that her masts re- 
mained above the water. The glorious flag for 
which the brave men aboard her had died flew 
proudly in the wind all that day, while the fight 
went on, and throughout the night ; and next 
morning it was still streaming over the beautiful 
bay, to mark the resting-place of as gallant a ves- 
sel as ever sailed or fought on the high seas. 

After the Cumberland sank, the ram turned 
her attention to the Congress. Finding it diffi- 
cult to get to her in the shoal water, she began 
to knock her to pieces with her great rifle-guns. 
The unequal fight between the ironclad and the 
wooden ship lasted for perhaps half an hour. By 
that time the commander of the Congress had 
been killed, and her decks looked like a slaughter- 
house. She was utterly unable to make any im- 



192 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

pression on her foe, and finally she took fire and 
blew up. The Minnesota was the third victim 
marked for destruction, and the Merrimac began 
the attack upon her at once ; but it was getting 
very late, and as the water was shoal and she 
could not get close, the ram finally drew back to 
her anchorage, to wait until next day before re- 
newing and completing her work of destruction. 

All that night there was the wildest exultation 
among the Confederates, while the gloom and 
panic of the Union men cannot be described. It 
was evident that the United States ships-of-war 
were as helpless as cockle-shells against their 
iron -clad foe, and there was no question but that 
she could destroy the whole fleet with ease and 
with absolute impunity. This meant not only the 
breaking of the blockade, but the sweeping away 
at one blow of the North's naval supremacy, 
which was indispensable to the success of the 
war for the Union. It is small wonder that 
during that nio-ht the wisest and bravest should 
have almost despaired. 

But in the hour of the nation's greatest need 
a champion suddenly appeared, in time to play 
the last scene in this great drama of sea warfare. 
The North, too, had been trying its hand at build- 
inof ironclads. The most successful of them was 
the little Monitor, a flat-decked, low, turreted 
ironclad, armed with a couple of heavy guns. 



HAMPTON ROADS 193 

She was the first experiment of her kind, and 
her absolutely flat surface, nearly level with the 
water, her revolving turret, and her utter unlike- 
ness to any preexisting- naval type, had made 
her an object of mirth among most practical sea- 
men ; but her inventor, Ericsson, was not dis- 
heartened in the least by the jeers. Under the 
command of a gallant naval officer, Captain Wor- 
den, she was sent South from New York, and 
though she almost foundered in a gale she man- 
aged to weather it, and reached the scene of the 
battle at Hampton Roads at the moment when her 
presence was all-important. 

Early the following morning the Merri7nac, 
now under Captain Jones (for Buchanan had 
been wounded), again steamed forth to take up 
the work she had so well begun and to destroy 
the Union fleet. She steered straight for the 
Minnesota; but when she was almost there, to 
her astonishment a strang-e-lookinQf little craft 
advanced from the side of the big wooden frig- 
ate and boldly barred the Merrimacs path. For 
a moment the Confederates could hardly believe 
their eyes. The Monitor was tiny, compared to 
their ship, for she was not one fifth the size, and 
her queer appearance made them look at their 
new foe with contempt ; but the first shock of 
battle did away with this feeling. The Merri- 
mac turned on her foe her rifle-guns, intending 



194 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

to blow her out of the water, but the shot glanced 
from the thick iron turret of the Monitor. Then 
the Monitors guns opened fire, and as the great 
balls struck the sides of the ram her plates started 
and her timbers gave. Had the Monitor been 
such a vessel as those of her type produced later 
in the war, the ram would have been sunk then 
and there ; but as it was her shot were not quite 
heavy enough to pierce the iron walls. Around 
and around the two strange combatants hovered, 
their guns bellowing without cessation, while the 
men on the frigates and on shore watched the re- 
sult with breathless interest. Neither the Mer- 
rimac nor the Monitor could dispose of its an- 
tagonist. The ram's guns could not damage the 
turret, and the Monitor was able dexterously to 
avoid the stroke of the formidable prow. On the 
other hand, the shot of the Monitor could not 
penetrate the Merrimac s tough sides. Accord- 
ingly, fierce though the struggle was, and much 
though there was that hinged on it, it was not 
bloody in character. The Merrimac could neither 
destroy nor evade the Monitor. She could not 
sink her when she tried to, and when she aban- 
doned her and turned to attack one of the other 
wooden vessels, the little turreted ship was 
thrown across her path, so that the fight had 
to be renewed. Both sides grew thoroughly 
exhausted, and finally the battle ceased by mu- 
tual consent. 



HAMPTON ROADS 195 

Nothing more could be done. The ram was 
badly damaged, and there was no help for her 
save to put back to the port whence she had 
come. Twice afterward she came out, but 
neither time did she come near enough to the 
Monitor to attack her, and the latter could not 
move off where she would cease to protect the 
wooden vessels. The ram was ultimately blown 
up by the Confederates on the advance of the 
Union army. 

Tactically, the fight was a drawn battle — 
neither ship being able to damage the other, 
and both ships being fought to a standstill ; but 
the moral and material effects were wholly in 
favor of the Monitor. Her victory was hailed 
with exultant joy throughout the whole Union, 
and exercised a correspondingly depressing ef- 
fect in the Confederacy ; while every naval man 
throughout the world, who possessed eyes to see, 
saw that the fight in Hampton Roads had inau- 
gurated a new era in ocean warfare, and that the 
Moiiitor and Merrimac, which had waged so gal- 
lant and so terrible a battle, were the first ships 
of the new era, and that as such their names 
would be forever famous. 



THE FLAG-BEARER 



Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord ; 

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are 

stored ; 
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword ; 
His truth is marching on. 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps ; 
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps ; 
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps ; 
His day is marching on. 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never beat retreat; 
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat ; 
Oh ! be swift, my soul, to answer him ! be jubilant, my feet ! 
Our God is marching on. 

—Julia Ward Howe. 



THE FLAG-BEARER 



IN no war since the close of the great Napole- 
onic struggles has the fighting been so obsti- 
nate and bloody as in the Civil War. Much has 
been said in song and story of the resolute cour- 
age of the Guards at Inkerman, of the charge of 
the Light Brigade, and of the terrible fighting and 
loss of the German armies at Mars La Tour and 
Gravelotte. The praise bestowed upon the British 
and Germans for their valor, and for the loss that 
proved their valor, was well deserved ; but there 
were over one hundred and twenty regiments, 
Union and Confederate, each of which, in some one 
battle of the Civil War, suffered a greater loss than 
any English regiment at Inkerman or at any other 
battle in the Crimea, a greater loss than was suf- 
fered by any German regiment at Gravelotte or 
at any other battle of the Franco- Prussian war. 
No European regiment in any recent struggle has 
suffered such losses as at Gettysburg befell the 
i st Minnesota, when 82 per cent, of the officers 



200 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

and men were killed and wounded; or the 141st 
Pennsylvania, which lost 76 per cent. ; or the 26th 
North Carolina, which lost 72 per cent. ; such as at 
the second battle of Manassas befell the 101st 
New York, which lost 74 per cent., and the 21st 
Georgia, which lost 76 per cent. At Cold Harbor 
the 25th Massachusetts lost 70 per cent., and the 
10th Tennessee at Chickamauga 68 per cent. ; 
while at Shiloh the 9th Illinois lost 63 per cent., 
and the 6th Mississippi 70 per cent.; and at An- 
tietam the 1st Texas lost 82 per cent. The loss of 
the Lio-ht Brigade in killed and wounded in its fa- 
mous charge at Balaklava was but $"] per cent. 

These figures show the terrible punishment en- 
dured by these regiments, chosen at random from 
the head of the list which shows the slaughter-roll 
of the Civil War. Yet the shattered remnants of 
each regiment preserved their organization, and 
many of the severest losses were incurred in the 
hour of triumph, and not of disaster. Thus, the 1st 
Minnesota, at Gettysburg, suffered its appalling 
loss while charging a greatly superior force, which 
it drove before it ; and the little huddle of wounded 
and unwounded men who survived their victorious 
charge actually kept both the flag they had cap- 
tured and the ground from which they had driven 
their foes. 

A number of the Continental regiments under 
Washington, Greene, and Wayne did valiant 



THE FLAG-BEARER 201 

fighting and endured heavy punishment. Several 
of the regiments raised on the northern frontier 
in 1 8 14 showed, under Brown and Scott, that they 
were able to meet the best troops of Britain on 
equal terms in the open, and even to overmatch 
them in fair fight with the bayonet. The regi- 
ments which, in the Mexican war, under the lead 
of Taylor, captured Monterey, and beat back Santa 
Anna at Buena Vista, or which, with Scott as 
commander, stormed Molino Del Rey and Cha- 
pultepec, proved their ability to bear terrible loss, 
to wrest victory from overwhelming numbers, and 
to carry by open assault positions of formidable 
strength held by a veteran army. But in none of 
these three wars was the fiofhtinpf so resolute and 
bloody as in the Civil War. 

Countless deeds of heroism were performed by 
Northerner and by Southerner, by officer and by 
private, in every year of the great struggle. The 
immense majority of these deeds went unrecorded, 
and were known to few beyond the immediate 
participants. Of those that were noticed it would 
be impossible even to make a dry catalogue in ten 
such volumes as this. All that can be done is to 
choose out two or three acts of heroism, not as 
exceptions, but as examples of hundreds of others. 
The times of war are iron times, and bring- out all 
that is best as well as all that is basest in the 
human heart. In a full recital of the civil war, as 



202 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

of every other great conflict, there would stand out 
in naked relief feats of wonderful daring and self- 
devotion, and, mixed among them, deeds of cowar- 
dice, of treachery, of barbarous brutality. Sadder 
still, such a recital would show strange contrasts 
in the careers of individual men, men who at one 
time acted well and nobly, and at another time ill 
and basely. The ugly truths must not be blinked, 
and the lessons they teach should be set forth by 
every historian, and learned by every statesman 
and soldier ; but, for our good fortune, the lessons 
best worth learning in the nation's past are lessons 
of heroism. 

From immemorial time the armies of every war- 
like people have set the highest value upon the 
standards they bore to battle. To guard one's 
own flag against capture is the pride, to capture 
the flag of one's enemy the ambition, of every 
valiant soldier. In consequence, in every war 
between peoples of good military record, feats of 
daring performed by color-bearers are honorably 
common. The Civil War was full of such incidents. 
Out of very many two or three may be mentioned 
as noteworthy. 

One occurred at Fredericksburg on the day 
when half the brigades of Meagher and Caldwell 
lay on the bloody slope leading up to the Con- 
federate entrenchments. Among the assaulting 
regiments was the 5th New Hampshire, and it 



THE FLAG-BEARER 203 

lost one hundred and eighty-six out of three hun- 
dred men who made the charge. The survivors 
fell sullenly back behind a fence, within easy range 
of the Confederate rifle-pits. Just before reaching 
it the last of the color guard was shot, and the flag 
fell in the open. A Captain Perry instantly ran 
out to rescue it, and as he reached it was shot 
through the heart ; another, Captain Murray, 
made the same attempt and was also killed ; and 
so was a third, Moore. Several private soldiers 
met a like fate. They were all killed close to the 
flag, and their dead bodies fell across one another. 
Taking advantage of this breastwork, Lieutenant 
Nettleton crawled from behind the fence to the 
colors, seized them, and bore back the blood-won 
trophy. 

Another took place at Gaines' Mill, where 
Gregg's 1st South Carolina formed part of the 
attacking force. The resistance was desperate, 
and the fury of the assault unsurpassed. At one 
point it fell to the lot of this regiment to bear the 
brunt of carrying a certain strong position. Mov- 
ing forward at a run, the South Carolinians were 
swept by a fierce and searching fire. Young 
James Taylor, a lad of sixteen, was carrying the 
flag, and was killed after being shot down three 
times, twice rising and struggling onward with 
the colors. The third time he fell the flag was 
seized by George Cotchet, and when he, in turn, 



204 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY ■ 

fell, by Shubrick Hayne. Hayne was also 
struck down almost immediately, and the fourth 
lad, for none of them were over twenty years old, 
grasped the colors, and fell mortally wounded 
across the body of his friend. The fifth, Gadsden 
Holmes, was pierced with no less than seven balls. 
The sixth man, Dominick Spellman, more fortu- 
nate, but not less brave, bore the flag throughout 
the rest of the battle. 

Yet another occurred at Antietam. The 7th 
Maine, then under the command of Major T. W. 
Hyde, was one of the hundreds of regiments that 
on many hard-fought fields established a reputa- 
tion for dash and unyielding endurance. Toward 
the early part of the day at Antietam it merely 
took its share in the charging and long-range 
firing, together with the New York and Vermont 
reeiments which were its immediate neighbors in 
the line. The fighting was very heavy. In one 
of the charges, the Maine men passed over what 
had been a Confederate regiment. The gray- 
clad soldiers were lying, both ranks, privates and 
officers, as they fell, for so many had been killed 
or disabled that it seemed as if the whole regi- 
ment was prone in death. 

Much of the time the Maine men lay on the 
battle-field, hugging the ground, under a heavy 
artillery fire, but beyond the reach of ordinary 
musketry. One of the privates, named Knox, 



THE FLAG-BEARER 205 

was a wonderful shot, and had received permis- 
sion to use his own special rifle, a weapon accu- 
rately sighted for very long range. While the 
regiment thus lay under the storm of shot and 
shell, he asked leave to go to the front ; and for 
an hour afterward his companions heard his rifle 
crack every few minutes. Major Hyde finally, 
from curiosity, crept forward to see what he was 
doing, and found that he had driven every man 
away from one section of a Confederate battery, 
tumbling over gunner after gunner as they came 
forward to fire. One of his victims was a general 
officer, whose horse he killed. At the end of an 
hour or so, a piece of shell took off the breech of 
his pet rifle, and he returned disconsolate ; but 
after a few minutes he gathered three rifles that 
were left by wounded men, and went back again 
to his work. 

At five o'clock in the afternoon the regiment 
was suddenly called upon to undertake a hopeless 
charge, owing to the blunder of the brigade 
commander, who was a gallant veteran of the 
Mexican war, but who was also given to drink. 
Opposite the Union lines at this point were some 
haystacks, near a group of farm buildings. They 
were right in the center of the Confederate posi- 
tion, and sharpshooters stationed among them 
were picking off the Union gunners. The briga- 
dier, thinking that they were held by but a few 



206 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

skirmishers, rode to where the 7th Maine was 
lying on the ground, and said : " Major Hyde, 
take your regiment and drive the enemy from 
those trees and buildings." Hyde saluted, and 
said that he had seen a large force of rebels go 
in among the buildings, probably two brigades in 
all. The brigadier answered, "Are you afraid 
to go, sir ? " and repeated the order emphatically. 
" Give the order so the regiment can hear it, and 
we are ready, sir," said Hyde. This was done, 
and " Attention " brought every man to his feet. 
With the regiment were two young boys who 
carried the marking guidons, and Hyde ordered 
these to the rear. They pretended to go, but as 
soon as the regiment charged came along with it. 
One of them lost his arm, and the other was killed 
on the field. The colors were carried by the color 
corporal, Harry Campbell. 

Hyde gave the orders to left face and forward, 
and the Maine men marched out in front of a 
Vermont regiment which lay beside them ; then, 
facing to the front, they crossed a sunken road, 
which was so filled with dead and wounded Con- 
federates that Hyde's horse had to step on them 
to get over. 

Once across, they stopped for a moment in the 
trampled corn to straighten the line, and then 
charged toward the right of the barns. On they 
went at the double-quick, fifteen skirmishers ahead 



THE FLAG-BEARER 207 

under Lieutenant Butler, Major Hyde on the 
right on his Virginia thoroughbred, and Adjutant 
Haskell to the left on a big white horse. The 
latter was shot down at once, as was his horse, 
and Hyde rode round in front of the regiment 
just in time to see a long line of men in gray rise 
from behind the stone wall of the Hagerstown 
pike, which was to their right, and pour in a vol- 
ley; but it mostly went too high. He then or- 
dered his men to left oblique. 

Just as they were abreast a hill to the right of 
the barns, Hyde, being some twenty feet ahead, 
looked over its top and saw several regiments of 
Confederates, jammed close together and waiting 
at the ready ; so he gave the order left flank, and, 
still at the double quick, took his column past the 
barns and buildings toward an orchard on the 
hither side, hoping that he could get them back 
before they were cut off, for they were faced by 
ten times their number. By going through the 
orchard he expected to be able to take advantage 
of a hollow, and partially escape the destructive 
flank fire on his return. 

To hope to keep the barns from which they had 
driven the sharpshooters was vain, for the single 
Maine regiment found itself opposed to portions 
of no less than four Confederate brigades, at least 
a dozen regiments all told. When the men got 
to the orchard fence, Sergeant Benson wrenched 



208 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

apart the tall pickets to let through Hyde's horse. 
While he was doing this, a shot struck his haver- 
sack, and the men all laughed at the sight of the 
flying hardtack. 

Going into the orchard there was a rise of 
ground, and the Confederates fired several vol- 
leys at the Maine men, and then charged them. 
Hyde's horse was twice wounded, but was still 
able to go on. 

No sooner were the men in blue beyond the 
fence than they got into line and met the Con- 
federates, as they came crowding behind, with a 
slaughtering fire, and then charged, driving them 
back. The color corporal was still carrying the 
colors, though one of his arms had been broken ; 
but when half way through the orchard, Hyde 
heard him call out as he fell, and turned back 
to save the colors, if possible. 

The apple-trees were short and thick, and he 
could not see much, and the Confederates, speedily 
got between him and his men. Immediately, with 
the cry of" Rally, boys, to save the Major," back 
surged the regiment, and a volley at arm's length 
again destroyed all the foremost of their pursuers ; 
so they rescued both their commander and the 
flag, which was carried off by Corporal Ring. 

Hyde then formed the regiment on the colors, 
sixty-eight men all told, out of two hundred and 
forty who had begun the charge, and they slowly 



THE FLAG-BEARER 209 

marched back toward their place in the Union 
line, while the New Yorkers and Vermonters rose 
from the ground cheering and waving their hats. 
Next day, when the Confederates had retired a 
little from the field, the color corporal, Campbell, 
was found in the orchard, dead, propped up against 
a tree, with his half-smoked pipe beside him. 



THE DEATH OF STONEWALL 
JACKSON 



Like a servant of the Lord, with his bible and his sword, 
Our general rode along us, to form us for the fight. 

— Macau lay. 



THE DEATH OF STONEWALL 
JACKSON 

THE Civil War has left, as all wars of broth- 
er against brother must leave, terrible and 
heartrending memories ; but there remains as 
an offset the glory which has accrued to the 
nation by the countless deeds of heroism per- 
formed by both sides in the struggle. The cap- 
tains and the armies that, after long years of 
dreary campaigning and bloody, stubborn fight- 
ing, brought the war to a close, have left us more 
than a reunited realm. North and South, all 
Americans, now have a common fund of glori- 
ous memories. We are the richer for each grim 
campaign, for each hard-fought battle. We are 
the richer for valor displays ' dike by those who 
fought so valiantly for the i ^ht, and by those 
who, no less valiantly, fought for what they 
deemed the right. We have in us nobler capa- 
cities for what is gTea* ari d good because of the 
infinite woe ?jk1 suff~ rm £. an d because of the 
splendid ultimate triumph- We hold that it was 



O TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

the welfare, not only of our people on 
anent, but of the whole human race, that 
.ion should be preserved and slavery abol- 
oiieu ; that one flag should fly from the Great 
Lakes to the Rio Grande ; that we should all be 
free in fact as well as in name, and that the 
United States should stand as one nation — the 
greatest nation on the earth. But we recognize 
gladly that, South as well as North, when the 
fight was once on, the leaders of the armies, and 
the soldiers whom they led, displayed the same 
qualities of daring and steadfast courage, of dis- 
interested loyalty and enthusiasm, and of high 
devotion to an ideal. 

The greatest general of the South was Lee, 
and his greatest lieutenant was Jackson. Both 
were Virginians, and both were strongly opposed 
to disunion. Lee went so far as to deny the right 
of secession, while Jackson insisted that the South 
ought to try to get its rights inside the Union, and 
not outside. But when Virginia joined the South- 
ern Confederacy, and the war had actually begun, 
both men cast their lot with the South. 

It is often said that the Civil War was in one 
sense a repetition of the old struggle between the 
Puritan and the Cavalier ; 'uit Puritan and Cava- 
lier types were common to thj two armies. In 
dash and light-hearted daring Cutter and Kear- 
ney stood as conspicuous as ^uart and Morgan ; 






THE DEATH OF STONEWALL JACKSON 215 

and, on the other hand, no Northern general ap- 
proached the Roundhead type — the type of the 
stern, religious warriors who fought under Crom- 
well — so closely as Stonewall Jackson. He was a 
man of intense religious conviction, who carried 
into every thought and deed of his daily life the 
precepts of the faith he cherished. He was a 
tender and loving husband and father, kind- 
hearted and gentle to all with whom he was 
brought in contact ; yet in the times that tried 
men's souls, he proved not only a commander of 
genius, but a fighter of iron will and temper, 
who joyed in the battle, and always showed at 
his best when the danger was greatest. The 
vein of fanaticism that ran through his charac- 
ter helped to render him a terrible opponent. 
He knew no such word as falter, and when he 
had once put his hand to a piece of work, he did 
it thoroughly and with all his heart. It was quite 
in keeping with his character that this gentle, 
high-minded, and religious man should, early in 
the contest, have proposed to hoist the black flag, 
neither take nor give quarter, and make the war 
one of extermination. No such policy was prac- 
tical in the nineteenth century and in the Ameri- 
can Republic ; but it would have seemed quite 
natural and proper to Jackson's ancestors, the 
grim Scotch- Irish, who defended Londonderry 
against the forces of the Stuart king, or to their 



216 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

forefathers, the Covenanters of Scotland, and the 
Puritans who in England rejoiced at the behead- 
ing - of King - Charles I. 

In the first battle in which Jackson took part, 
the confused struggle at Bull Run, he gained his 
name of Stonewall from the firmness with which 
he kept his men to their work and repulsed the 
attack of the Union troops. From that time 
until his death, less than two years afterward, 
his career was one of brilliant and almost unin- 
terrupted success ; whether serving with an in- 
dependent command in the Valley, or acting under 
Lee as his right arm in the pitched battles with 
McClellan, Pope, and Burnside. Few generals 
as great as Lee have ever had as great a lieuten- 
ant as Jackson. He was a master of strategy and 
tactics, fearless of responsibility, able to instil into 
his men his own intense ardor in battle, and so 
quick in his movements, so ready to march as 
well as fight, that his troops were known to the 
rest of the army as the " foot cavalry." 

In the spring of 1863 Hooker had command 
of the Army of the Potomac. Like McClellan, 
he was able to perfect the discipline of his forces 
and to organize them, and as a division com- 
mander he was better than McClellan, but he 
failed even more signally when given a great in- 
dependent command. He had under him 1 20,000 
men when, toward the end of April, he prepared 




STONEWALL JACKSON GOING FORWARD ON THE PLANK ROAD IN 
ADVANCE OF THE LINE OF BATTLE. 



THE DEATH OF STONEWALL JACKSON 219 

to attack Lee's army, which was but half as 
strong. 

The Union army lay opposite Fredericksburg, 
looking at the fortified heights where they had re- 
ceived so bloody a repulse at the beginning of the 
winter. Hooker decided to distract the attention 
of the Confederates by letting a small portion of 
his force, under General Sedgwick, attack Fred- 
ericksburg, while he himself took the bulk of the 
army across the river to the right hand so as to 
crush Lee by an assault on his flank. All went 
well at the beginning, and on the first of May 
Hooker found himself at Chancellorsville, face-to- 
face with the bulk of Lee's forces; and Sedgwick, 
crossing the river and charging with the utmost 
determination, had driven out of Fredericksburg 
the Confederate division of Early ; but when 
Hooker found himself in front of Lee he hesi- 
tated, faltered instead of pushing on, and allowed 
the consummate general to whom he was op- 
posed to take the initiative. 

Lee fully realized his danger, and saw that his 
only chance was, first to beat back Hooker, and 
then to turn and overwhelm Sedgwick, who was 
in his rear. He consulted with Jackson, and Jack- 
son begged to be allowed to make one of his 
favorite flank attacks upon the Union army ; at- 
tacks which could have been successfully delivered 
only by a skilled and resolute general, and by 



22o HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

troops equally able to march and to fight. Lee 
consented, and Jackson at once made off. The 
country was thickly covered with a forest of rather 
small growth, for it was a wild region, in which 
there was still plenty of game. Shielded by the 
forest, Jackson marched his gray columns rapidly 
to the left along the narrow country roads until 
he was square on the flank of the Union right 
wing, which was held by the Eleventh Corps, 
under Howard. The Union scouts got track of 
the movement and reported it at headquarters, 
but the Union generals thought the Confederates 
were retreating ; and when finally the scouts 
brought word to Howard that he was menaced 
by a flank attack he paid no heed to the informa- 
tion, and actually let his whole corps be surprised 
in broad daylight. Yet all the while the battle 
was going on elsewhere, and Berdan's sharp- 
shooters had surrounded and captured a Georgia 
regiment, from which information was received 
showing definitely that Jackson was not retreat- 
ing, and must be preparing to strike a heavy 
blow. 

The Eleventh Corps had not the slightest idea 
that it was about to be assailed. The men were 
not even in line. Many of them had stacked their 
muskets and were lounging about, some playing 
cards, others cooking supper, intermingled with 
the pack-mules and beef cattle. While they were 



THE DEATH OF STONEWALL JACKSON 221 

thus utterly unprepared Jackson's gray-clad vete- 
rans pushed straight through the forest and rushed 
fiercely to the attack. The first notice the troops 
of the Eleventh Corps received did not come from 
the pickets, but from the deer, rabbits and foxes 
which, fleeing from their coverts at the approach 
of the Confederates, suddenly came running over 
and into the Union lines. In another minute the 
frightened pickets came tumbling back, and right 
behind them came the long files of charging, yell- 
ing Confederates. With one fierce rush Jackson's 
men swept over the Union lines, and at a blow 
the Eleventh Corps became a horde of panic- 
struck fugitives. Some of the regiments resisted 
for a few moments, and then they too were car- 
ried away in the flight. 

For a while it seemed as if the whole army would 
be swept off; but Hooker and his subordinates 
exerted every effort to restore order. It was im- 
perative to gain time so that the untouched por- 
tions of the army could form across the line of 
the Confederate advance. 

Keenan's regiment of Pennsylvania cavalry, 
but four hundred sabers strong, was accordingly 
sent full against the front of the ten thousand 
victorious Confederates. 

Keenan himself fell, pierced by bayonets, and 
the charge was repulsed at once ; but a few price- 
less moments had been saved, and Pleasanton 



222 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

had been given time to post twenty-two guns, 
loaded with double canister, where they would 
bear upon the enemy. 

The Confederates advanced in a dense mass, 
yelling and cheering, and the discharge of the 
guns fairly blew them back across the works 
they had just taken. Again they charged, and 
a^ain were driven back ; and when the battle once 
more began the Union reinforcements had arrived. 

It was about this time that Jackson himself was 
mortally wounded. He had been leading and 
urging on the advance of his men, cheering them 
with voice and gesture, his pale face flushed with 
joy and excitement, while from time to time as he 
sat on his horse he took off his hat and, looking 
upward, thanked heaven for the victory it had 
vouchsafed him. As darkness drew near he was. 
in the front, where friend and foe were mingled 
in almost inextricable confusion. He and his staff 
were fired at, at close range, by the Union troops, 
and, as they turned, were fired at again, through 
a mistake, by the Confederates behind them. 
Jackson fell, struck in several places. He was put 
in a litter and carried back ; but he never lost 
consciousness, and when one of his generals com- 
plained of the terrible effect of the Union cannon- 
ade he answered : 

" You must hold your ground." 

For several days he lingered, hearing how 



THE DEATH OF STONEWALL JACKSON 223 

Lee beat Hooker, in detail, and forced him back 
across the river. Then the old Puritan died. At 
the end his mind wandered, and he thought he 
was again commanding in battle, and his last 
words were. 

" Let us cross over the river and rest in the 
shade." 

Thus perished Stonewall Jackson, one of the 
ablest of soldiers and one of the most upright of 
men, in the last of his many triumphs. 



THE CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG 



For the Lord 

On the whirlwind is abroad ; 
In the earthquake he has spoken ; 

He has smitten with his thunder 

The iron walls asunder, 
And the gates of brass are broken ! 

— Whittier. 

With bray of the trumpet, 

And roll of the drum, 
And keen ring of bugle 

The cavalry come : 
Sharp clank the steel scabbards, 

The bridle-chains ring, 
And foam from red nostrils 

The wild chargers fling ! 

Tramp, tramp o'er the greensward 

That quivers below, 
Scarce held by the curb bit 

The fierce horses go ! 
And the grim-visaged colonel, 

With ear-rending shout, 
Peals forth to the squadrons 

The order, "Trot Out"! 

— Francis A. Durivaire. 



THE CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG 

^T^HE battle of Chancellorsville marked the 
X. zenith of Confederate good fortune. Im- 
mediately afterward, in June, 1863, Lee led the 
victorious army of Northern Virginia into Penn- 
sylvania. The South was now the invader, not 
the invaded, and its heart beat proudly with hopes 
of success; but these hopes went down in bloody 
wreck on July 4, when word was sent to the world 
that the high valor of Virginia had failed at last 
on the field of Gettysburg, and that in the far 
West Vicksburg had been taken by the army of 
the " silent soldier." 

At Gettysburg Lee had under him some seventy 
thousand men, and his opponent, Meade, about 
ninety thousand. Both armies were composed 
mainly of seasoned veterans, trained to the high- 
est point by campaign after campaign and battle 
after battle ; and there was nothing to choose 
between them as to the fighting power of the rank 
and file. The Union army was the larger, yet 



228 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

most of the time it stood on the defensive ; for 
the difference between the generals, Lee and 
Meade, was greater than could be bridged by 
twenty thousand men. For three days the battle 
raged. No other battle of recent time has been 
so obstinate and so bloody. The victorious Union 
army lost a greater percentage in killed and 
wounded than the allied armies of England, Ger- 
many, and the Netherlands lost at Waterloo. 
Four of its seven corps suffered each a greater 
relative loss than befell the world-renowned Brit- 
ish infantry on the day that saw the doom of the 
French emperor. The defeated Confederates at 
Gettysburg lost, relatively, as many men as the 
defeated French at Waterloo ; but whereas the 
French army became a mere rabble, Lee with- 
drew his formidable soldiery with their courage 
unbroken, and their fighting power only dimin- 
ished by their actual losses in the field. 

The decisive moment of the battle, and perhaps 
of the whole war, was in the afternoon of the third 
day, when Lee sent forward his choicest troops 
in a last effort to break the middle of the Union 
line. The center of the attacking force was Pick- 
ett's division, the flower of the Virginia infantry ; 
but many other brigades took part in the assault, 
and the column, all told, numbered over fifteen 
thousand men. At the same time, the Confeder- 
ates attacked the Union left to create a diversion. 



THE CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG 229 

The attack was preceded by a terrific cannonade, 
Lee gathering one hundred and fifteen guns, and 
opening a fire on the center of the Union line. 
In response, Hunt, the Union chief of artillery, 
and Tyler, of the artillery reserves, gathered 
eighty guns on the crest of the gently sloping 
hill, where attack was threatened. For two hours, 
from one till three, the cannonade lasted, and 
the batteries on both sides suffered severely. In 
both the Union and Confederate lines caissons 
were blown up by the fire, riderless horses dashed 
hither and thither, the dead lay in heaps, and 
throngs of wounded streamed to the rear. Every 
man lay down and sought what cover he could. 
It was evident that the Confederate cannonade 
was but a prelude to a great infantry attack, 
and at three o'clock Hunt ordered the fire to 
stop, that the guns might cool, to be ready for the 
coming assault. The Confederates thought that 
they had silenced the hostile artillery, and for a 
few minutes their firing continued ; then, suddenly, 
it ceased, and there was a lull. 

The men on the Union side who were not at the 
point directly menaced peered anxiously across 
the space between the lines to watch the next 
move, while the men in the divisions which it was 
certain were about to be assaulted, lay hugging 
the ground and gripping their muskets, excited, 
but confident and resolute. They saw the smoke 



230 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

clouds rise slowly from the opposite crest, where 
the Confederate army lay, and the sunlight glinted 
again on the long line of brass and iron guns 
which had been hidden from view during the can- 
nonade. In another moment, out of the lifting 
smoke there appeared, beautiful and terrible, the 
picked thousands of the Southern army coming on 
to the assault. They advanced in three lines, each 
over a mile long, and in perfect order. Pickett's 
Virginians held the center, with on their left the 
North Carolinians of Pender and Pettigrew, and 
on their right the Alabama regiments of Wilcox ; 
and there were also Georgian and Tennessee reo;i- 
ments in the attacking force. Pickett's division, 
however, was the only one able to press its charge 
home. After leaving the woods where they started, 
the Confederates had nearly a mile and a half to 
go in their charge. As the Virginians moved, 
they bent slightly to the left, so as to leave a gap 
between them and the Alabamians on the right. 

The Confederate lines came on magnificently. 
As they crossed the Emmetsburg Pike the eighty 
guns on the Union crest, now cool and in good 
shape, opened upon them, first with shot and then 
with shell. Great gaps were made every second 
in the ranks, but the gray-clad soldiers closed up 
to the center, and the color-bearers leaped to the 
front, shaking and waving the flags. The Union 
infantry reserved their fire until the Confederates 



THE CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG 233 

were within easy range, when the musketry 
crashed out with a roar, and the big guns began 
to fire grape and canister. On came the Con- 
federates, the men falling by hundreds, the colors 
fluttering in front like a little forest ; for as fast 
as a color-bearer was shot some one else seized 
the flag from his hand before it fell. The North 
Carolinians were more exposed to the fire than 
any other portion of the attacking force, and 
they were broken before they reached the line. 
There was a gap between the Virginians and the 
Alabama troops, and this was taken advantage 
of by Stannard's Vermont brigade and a demi- 
brigade under Gates, of the 20th New York, who 
were thrust forward into it. Stannard changed 
front with his regiments and fell on Pickett's forces 
in flank, and Gates continued the attack. When 
thus struck in the flank, the Virginians could not 
defend themselves, and they crowded off toward the 
center to avoid the pressure. Many of them were 
killed or captured ; many were driven back ; but 
two of the brigades, headed by General Armi- 
stead, forced their way forward to the stone wall 
on the crest, where the Pennsylvania regiments 
were posted under Gibbon and Webb. 

The Union guns fired to the last moment, until 
of the two batteries immediately in front of the 
charging Virginians every officer but one had 
been struck. One of the mortally wounded offi- 



234 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

cers was young dishing, a brother of the hero 
of the Albemarle fight. He was almost cut in 
two, but holding his body together with one hand, 
with the other he fired his last gun, and fell dead, 
just as Armistead, pressing forward at the head 
of his men, leaped the wall, waving his hat on his 
sword. Immediately afterward the battle-flags 
of the foremost Confederate regiments crowned 
the crest ; but their strength was spent. The 
Union troops moved forward with the bayonet, 
and the remnant of Pickett's division, attacked on 
all sides, either surrendered or retreated down 
the hill again. Armistead fell, dying, by the body 
of the dead Cushing. Both Gibbon and Webb 
were wounded. Of Pickett's command two thirds 
were killed, wounded or captured, and every bri- 
gade commander and every field officer, save one, 
fell. The Virginians tried to rally, but were 
broken and driven again by Gates, while Stan- 
nard repeated, at the expense of the Alabamians, 
the movement he had made against the Virgin- 
ians, and, reversing his front, attacked them in 
flank. Their lines were torn by the batteries in 
front, and they fell back before the Vermonter's 
attack, and Stannard reaped a rich harvest of 
prisoners and of battle-flags. 

The charofe was over. It was the greatest 
charge in any battle of modern times, and it had 
failed. It would be impossible to surpass the gal- 



THE CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG 235 

lantry of those that made it, or the gallantry of 
those that withstood it. Had there been in com- 
mand of the Union army a general like Grant, it 
would have been followed by a counter-charge, 




MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER. 

and in all probability the war would have been 
■shortened by nearly two years ; but no counter- 
charge was made. 

As the afternoon waned, a fierce cavalry fight 
took place on the Union right. Stuart, the famous 
Confederate cavalry commander, had moved for- 
ward to turn the Union right, but he was met by 



236 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

Gregg's cavalry, and there followed a contest, at 
close quarters, with " the white arm." It closed 
with a desperate melee, in which the Confeder- 
ates, charging under Generals Wade Hampton 
and Fitz Lee, were met in mid career by the 
Union generals Custer and Mcintosh. All four 
fought, saber in hand, at the head of their troop- 
ers, and every man on each side was put into the 
struggle. Custer, his yellow hair flowing, his face 
aflame with the eager joy of battle, was in the 
thick of the fight, rising in his stirrups as he called 
to his famous Michigan swordsmen : " Come on, 
you Wolverines, come on ! " All that the Union 
infantry, watching eagerly from their lines, could 
see, was a vast dust-cloud where flakes of light 
shimmered as the sun shone upon the swinging 
sabers. At last the Confederate horsemen were 
beaten back, and they did not come forward again 
or seek to renew the combat ; for Pickett's charge 
had failed, and there was no longer hope of Con- 
federate victory. 

When night fell, the Union flags waved in tri- 
umph on the field of Gettysburg ; but over thirty 
thousand men lay dead or wounded, strewn 
through wood and meadow, on field and hill, 
where the three days' fight had surged. 



GENERAL GRANT AND THE 
VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN 



What flag is this you carry 

Along the sea and shore? 
The same our grandsires lifted up — 

The same our fathers bore. 
In many a battle's tempest 

It shed the crimson rain — 
What God has woven in his loom 

Let no man rend in twain. 
To Canaan, to Canaan, 

The Lord has led us forth, 
To plant upon the rebel towers 

The banners of the North. 

— Holmes. 



GENERAL GRANT AND THE VICKS- 
BURG CAMPAIGN 



ON January 29, 1863, General Grant took 
command of the army intended to operate 
against Vicksburg, the last place held by the 
rebels on the Mississippi, and the only point at 
which they could cross the river and keep up 
communication with their armies and territory in 
the southwest. It was the first high ground be- 
low Memphis, was very strongly fortified, and was 
held by a large army under General Pemberton. 
The complete possession of the Mississippi was 
absolutely essential to the National Government, 
because the control of that great river would cut 
the Confederacy in two, and do more, probably, 
than anything else, to make the overthrow of the 
Rebellion both speedy and certain. 

The natural way to invest and capture so strong 
a place, defended and fortified as Vicksburg was, 
would have been, if the axioms of the art of war 
had been adhered to, by a system of gradual 
approaches. A strong base should have been 



240 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

established at Memphis, and then the army and 
the fleet moved gradually forward, building store- 
houses and taking strong positions as they went. 
To do this, however, it first would have been nec- 
essary to withdraw the army from the positions 
it then held not far above Vicksburg, on the west- 
ern bank of the river. But such a movement, at 
that time, would not have been understood by 
the country, and would have had a discouraging 
effect on the public mind, which it was most 
essential to avoid. The elections of 1862 had 
gone against the government, and there was great 
discouragement throughout the North. Volun- 
tary enlistments had fallen off, a draft had been 
ordered, and the peace party was apparently 
gaining rapidly in strength. General Grant, 
looking at this grave political situation with the 
eye of a statesman, decided, as a soldier, that 
under no circumstances would he withdraw the 
army, but that, whatever happened, he would 
" press forward to a decisive victory." In this 
determination he never faltered, but drove straight 
at his object until, five months later, the great 
Mississippi stronghold fell before him. 

Efforts were made through the winter to reach 
Vicksburg from the north by cutting canals, and 
by attempts to get in through the bayous and 
tributary streams of the great river. All these 
expedients failed, however, one after another, as 



GRANT AND THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN 241 

Grant, from the beginning - , had feared that they 
would. He, therefore, took another and widely dif- 
ferent line, and determined to cross the river from 
the western to the eastern bank below Vicksburg, 
to the south. With the aid of the fleet, which 
ran the batteries successfully, he moved his army 
down the west bank until he reached a point be- 
yond the possibility of attack, while a diversion by 
Sherman at Haines' Bluff, above Vicksburg, kept 
Pemberton in his fortifications. On April 26, 
Grant began to move his men over the river and 
landed them at Bruinsburg. "When this was ef- 
fected," he writes, " I felt a degree of relief scarcely 
ever equaled since. Vicksburg was not yet taken, 
it is true, nor were its defenders demoralized by 
any of our previous movements. I was now in 
the enemy's country, with a vast river and the 
stronghold of Vicksburg between me and my base 
of supplies, but I was on dry ground, on the same 
side of the river with the enemy." 

The situation was this : The enemy had about 
sixty thousand men at Vicksburg, Haines' Bluff, 
and at Jackson, Mississippi, about fifty miles east 
of Vicksburg. Grant, when he started, had about 
thirty-three thousand men. It was absolutely 
necessary for success that Grant, with inferior 
numbers, should succeed in destroying the smaller 
forces to the eastward, and thus prevent their 
union with Pemberton and the main army at 



242 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

Vicksburg. His plan, in brief, was to fight and 
defeat a superior enemy separately and in detail. 
He lost no time in putting his plan into action, 
and pressing forward quickly, met a detachment 
of the enemy at Port Gibson and defeated them. 
Thence he marched to Grand Gulf, on the Mis- 
sissippi, which he took, and which he had planned 
to make a base of supply. When he reached 
Grand Gulf, however, he found that he would be 
obliged to wait a month, in order to obtain the 
reinforcements which he expected from General 
Banks at Port Hudson. He, therefore, gave up 
the idea of making Grand Gulf a base, and Sher- 
man having now joined him with his corps, Grant 
struck at once into the interior. He took nothing 
with him except ammunition, and his army was 
in the lightest marching order. This enabled him 
to move with great rapidity, but deprived him 
of his wagon trains, and of all munitions of war 
except cartridges. Everything, however, in this 
campaign, depended on quickness, and Grant's de- 
cision, as well as all his movements, marked the 
genius of the great soldier, which consists very 
largely in knowing just when to abandon the 
accepted military axioms. 

Pressing forward, Grant met the enemy, num- 
bering between seven and eight thousand, at 
Raymond, and readily defeated them. He then 
marched on toward Jackson, fighting another ac- 



GRANT AND THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN 245 

tion at Clinton, and at Jackson he struck General 
Joseph Johnston, who had arrived at that point 
to take command of all the rebel forces. John- 
ston had with him, at the moment, about eleven 
thousand men, and stood his ground. There was 
a sharp fight, but Grant easily defeated the enemy, 
and took possession of the town. This was an im- 
portant point, for Jackson was the capital of the 
State of Mississippi, and was a base of military sup- 
plies. Grant destroyed the factories and the muni- 
tions of war which were gathered there, and also 
came into possession of the line of railroad which 
ran from Jackson to Vicksburg. While he was thus 
engaged, an intercepted message revealed to him 
the fact that Pemberton, in accordance with John- 
ston's orders, had come out of Vicksburg with 
twenty-five thousand men, and was moving east- 
ward against him. Pemberton, however, instead 
of holding a straight line against Grant, turned at 
first to the south, with the view of breaking the 
latter's line of communication. This was not a 
success, for, as Grant says, with grim humor, " I 
had no line of communication to break " ; and, 
moreover, it delayed Pemberton when delay was 
of value to Grant in finishing Johnston. After 
this useless turn to the southward Pemberton re- 
sumed his march to the east, as he should have 
done in the beginning, in accordance with John- 
ston's orders; but Grant was now more than 



246 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

ready. He did not wait the coming of Pember- 
ton. Leaving Jackson as soon as he heard of the 
enemy's advance from Vicksburg, he marched 
rapidly westward and struck Pemberton at Cham- 
pion Hills. The forces were at this time very 
nearly matched, and the severest battle of the 
campaign ensued, lasting four hours. Grant, how- 
ever, defeated Pemberton completely, and came 
very near capturing his entire force. With a 
broken army, Pemberton fell back on Vicksburg. 
Grant pursued without a moment's delay, and 
came up with the rear guard at Big Black River. 
A sharp engagement followed, and the Confed- 
erates were again defeated. Grant then crossed 
the Big Black and the next day was before Vicks- 
burg, with his enemy inside the works. 

When Grant crossed the Mississippi at Bruins- 
burg and struck into the interior, he, of course, 
passed out of communication with Washington, 
and he did not hear from there again until May 
1 1, when, just as his troops were engaging in the 
battle of Black River Bridge, an officer appeared 
from Port Hudson with an order from General 
Halleck to return to Grand Gulf and thence co- 
operate with Banks against Port Hudson. Grant 
replied that the order came too late. " The bearer 
of the despatch insisted that I ought to obey the 
order, and was giving arguments to support the 
position, when I heard a great cheering to the 



GRANT AND THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN 247 

right of our line, and looking in that direction, 
saw Lawler, in his shirt-sleeves, leading a charge 
on the enemy. I immediately mounted my horse 
and rode in the direction of the charge, and saw- 
no more of the officer who had delivered the mes- 
sage ; I think not even to this day." When Grant 
reached Vicksburg, there was no further talk of 
recalling him to Grand Gulf or Port Hudson. The 
authorities at Washington then saw plainly enough 
what had been done in the interior of Mississippi, 
far from the reach of telegraphs or mail. 

As soon as the National troops reached Vicks- 
burg an assault was attempted, but the place was 
too strong, and the attack was repulsed, with 
heavy loss. Grant then settled down to a siege, 
and Lincoln and Halleck now sent him ample re- 
inforcements. He no longer needed to ask for 
them. His campaign had explained itself, and in 
a short time he had seventy thousand men under 
his command. His lines were soon made so strong 
that it was impossible for the defenders of Vicks- 
burg to break through them, and although John- 
ston had gathered troops again to the eastward, 
an assault from that quarter on the National army, 
now so largely reinforced, was practically out of 
the question. Tighter and tighter Grant drew 
his lines about the city, where, every day, the suf- 
fering became more intense. It is not necessary 
to give the details of the siege. On July 4, 1863, 



248 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

Vicksburg surrendered, the Mississippi was in 
control of the National forces from its source to 
its mouth, and the Confederacy was rent in twain. 
On the same day Lee was beaten at Gettysburg, 
and these two great victories really crushed the 
Rebellion, although much hard fighting remained 
to be done before the end was reached. 

Grant's campaign against Vicksburg deserves 
to be compared with that of Napoleon which re- 
sulted in the fall of Ulm. It was the most bril- 
liant single campaign of the war. With an inferior 
force, and abandoning his lines of communica- 
tion, moving with a marvelous rapidity through 
a difficult country, Grant struck the superior forces 
of the enemy on the line from Jackson to Vicks- 
burg. He crushed Johnston before Pemberton 
could get to him, and he flung Pemberton back 
into Vicksburg before Johnston could rally from 
the defeat which had been inflicted. With an in- 
ferior force, Grant was superior at every point of 
contest, and he won every fight. Measured by 
the skill displayed and the result achieved, there 
is no campaign in our history which better de- 
serves study and admiration. 



ROBERT GOULD SHAW 



Brave, good, and true, 

I see him stand before me now, 

And read again on that young brow, 

Where every hope was new, 

How sweet were life ! Yet, by the mouth firm-set, 

And look made up for Duty's utmost debt, 

I could divine he knew 

That death within the sulphurous hostile lines, 

In the mere wreck of nobly-pitched designs, 

Plucks heart's-ease, and not rue. 

Right in the van, 

On the red rampart's slippery swell, 

With heart that beat a charge, he fell, 

Foeward, as fits a man ; 

But the high soul burns on to light men's feet 

Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet ; 

His life her crescent's span 

Orbs full with share in their undarkening days 

Who ever climbed the battailous steeps of praise 

Since valor's praise began. 

We bide our chance, 

Unhappy, and make terms with Fate 

A little more to let us wait ; 

He leads for aye the advance, 

Hope's forlorn-hopes that plant the desperate good 

For nobler Earths and days of manlier mood ; 

Our wall of circumstance 

Cleared at a bound, he flashes o'er the fight, 

A saintly shape of fame, to cheer the right 

And steel each wavering glance. 

I write of one, 

While with dim eyes I think of three ; 

Who weeps not others fair and brave as he ? 

Ah, when the fight is won, 

Dear Land, whom triflers now make bold to scorn 

(Thee from whose forehead Earth awaits her morn), 

How nobler shall the sun 

Flame in thy sky, how braver breathe thy air, 

That thou bred'st children who for thee could dare 

And die as thine have done. 

— Lowell. 



ROBERT GOULD SHAW 



ROBERT GOULD SHAW was born in Bos- 
ton on October 10, 1837, the son of Francis 
and Sarah Sturgis Shaw. When he was about 
nine years old, his parents moved to Staten Island, 
and he was educated there, and at school in the 
neighborhood of New York, until he went to Eu- 
rope in 1853, where he remained traveling and 
studying for the next three years. He entered 
Harvard College in 1856, and left at the end of 
his third year, in order to accept an advantageous 
business offer in New York. 

Even as a boy he took much interest in politics, 
and especially in the question of slavery. He 
voted for Lincoln in i860, and at that time en- 
listed as a private in the New York 7th Regiment, 
feeling that there was likelihood of trouble, and 
that there would be a demand for soldiers to de- 
fend the country. His foresight was justified only 
too soon, and on April 19, 1861, he marched with 
his regiment to Washington. The call for the 7th 



252 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

Regiment was only for thirty days, and at the ex- 
piration of that service he applied for and obtained 
a commission as second lieutenant in the 2d Mas- 
sachusetts, and left with that regiment for Virginia 
in July, 1 861. He threw himself eagerly into his 
new duties, and soon gained a good position in 
the regiment. At Cedar Mountain he was an aid 
on General Gordon's staff, and was greatly ex- 
posed in the performance of his duties during the 
action. He was also with his regiment at Antie- 
tam, and was in the midst of the heavy fighting 
of that great battle. 

Early in 1863, the Government determined to 
form negro regiments, and Governor Andrew 
offered Shaw, who had now risen to the rank of 
captain, the colonelcy of one to be raised in Mas- 
sachusetts, the first black regiment recruited under 
State authority. It was a great compliment to 
receive this offer, but Shaw hesitated as to his 
capacity for such a responsible post. He first 
wrote a letter declining, on the ground that he 
did not feel that he had ability enough for the 
undertaking, and then changed his mind, and tel- 
egraphed Governor Andrew that he would accept. 
It is not easy to realize it now, but his action then 
in accepting this command required high moral 
courage, of a kind quite different from that which 
he had displayed already on the field of battle. 
The prejudice against the blacks was still strong 



ROBERT GOULD SHAW 253 

even in the North. There was a great deal of 
feeling among certain classes against enlisting 
black regiments at all, and the officers who un- 
dertook to recruit and lead negroes were exposed 
to much attack and criticism. Shaw felt, however, 
that this very opposition made it all the more in- 
cumbent on him to undertake the duty. He 
wrote on February 8 : 

After I have undertaken this work, I shall feel that what I 
have to do is to prove that the negro can be made a good sol- 
dier. ... I am inclined to think that the undertaking will 
not meet with so much opposition as was at first supposed. All 
sensible men in the army, of all parties, after a little thought, 
say that it is the best thing that can be done, and surely those 
at home who are not brave or patriotic enough to enlist should 
not ridicule or throw obstacles in the way of men who are going 
to fight for them. There is a great prejudice against it, but 
now that it has become a government matter, that will probably 
wear away. At any rate I sha'n't be frightened out of it by its 
unpopularity. I feel convinced I shall never regret having 
taken this step, as far as I myself am concerned ; for while I 
was undecided, I felt ashamed of myself as if I were cowardly. 

Colonel Shaw went at once to Boston, after ac- 
cepting his new duty, and began the work of 
raising and drilling the 54th Regiment. He met 
with great success, for he and his officers labored 
heart and soul, and the regiment repaid their ef- 
forts. On March 30, he wrote : " The mustering 
officer who was here to-day is a Virginian, and 
has always thought it was a great joke to try to 



254 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

make soldiers of ' niggers,' but he tells me now 
that he has never mustered in so fine a set of 
men, though about twenty thousand had passed 
through his hands since September." On May 
28, Colonel Shaw left Boston, and his march 
through the city was a triumph. The appearance 
of his regiment made a profound impression, and 
was one of the events of the war which those who 
saw it never forgot. 

The regiment was ordered to South Carolina, 
and when they were off Cape Hatteras, Colonel 
Shaw wrote : 

The more I think of the passage of the 54th through Bos- 
ton, the more wonderful it seems to me. Just remember our 
own doubts and fears, and other people's sneering and pitying 
remarks when we began last winter, and then look at the per- 
fect triumph of last Thursday. We have gone quietly along, 
forming the first regiment, and at last left Boston amidst greater 
enthusiasm than has been seen since the first three months' 
troops left for the war. Truly, I ought to be thankful for all 
my happiness and my success in life so far ; and if the raising 
of colored troops prove such a benefit to the country and to 
the blacks as many people think it will, I shall thank God a 
thousand times that I was led to take my share in it. 

He had, indeed, taken his share in striking one 
of the most fatal blows to the barbarism of slavery 
which had yet been struck. The formation of the 
black regiments did more for the emancipation of 
the negro and the .recognition of his rights, than 
almost anything else. It was impossible, after 



ROBERT GOULD SHAW 257 

that, to say that men who fought and gave their 
lives for the Union and for their own freedom 
were not entitled to be free. The acceptance of 
the command of a black regiment by such men 
as Shaw and his fellow-officers was the ereat act 
which made all this possible. 

After reaching South Carolina, Colonel Shaw 
was with his regiment at Port Royal and on the 
islands of that coast for rather more than a month, 
and on July 18 he was offered the post of honor 
in an assault upon Fort Wagner, which was or- 
dered for that night. He had proved that the 
negroes could be made into a good regiment, and 
now the second great opportunity had come, to 
prove their fighting quality. He wanted to de- 
monstrate that his men could fight side by side 
with white soldiers, and show to somebody beside 
their officers what stuff they were made of. He, 
therefore, accepted the dangerous duty with glad- 
ness. Late in the clay the troops were marched 
across Folly and Morris islands and formed in line 
of battle within six hundred yards of Fort Wagner. 
At half-past seven the order for the charge was 
given, and the regiment advanced. When they 
were within a hundred yards of the fort, the rebel 
fire opened with such effect that the first battalion 
hesitated and wavered. Colonel Shaw sprang to 
the front, and waving his sword, shouted : " For- 
ward, 54th! " With another cheer, the men rushed 



258 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

through the ditch, and gained a parapet on the 
ricrht. Colonel Shaw was one of the first to scale 
the walls. As he stood erect, a noble figure, or- 
dering his men forward and shouting to them to 
press on, he was shot dead and fell into the fort. 
After his fall, the assault was repulsed. 

General Haywood, commanding the rebel for- 
ces, said to a Union prisoner: "I knew Colonel 
Shaw before the war, and then esteemed him. 
Had he been in command of white troops, I should 
have given him an honorable burial. As it is, I 
shall bury him in the common trench, with the 
negroes that fell with him." He little knew that 
he was divine the dead soldier the most hon- 
orable burial that man could have devised, for 
the savage words told unmistakably that Robert 
Shaw's work had not been in vain. The order to 
bury him with his " niggers," which ran through 
the North and remained fixed in our history, 
showed, in a flash of light, the hideous barbarism 
of a system which made such things and such 
feelings possible. It also showed that slavery 
was wounded to the death, and that the brutal 
phrase was the angry snarl of a dying tiger. Such 
words rank with the action of Charles Stuart, 
when he had the bones of Oliver Cromwell and 
Robert Blake torn from their graves and flung 
on dunghills or fixed on Temple Bar. 

Robert Shaw fell in battle at the head of his 



ROBERT GOULD SHAW 259 

men, giving his life to his country, as did many 
another gallant man during those four years of 
conflict. But he did something more than this. 
He faced prejudice and hostility in the North, 
and confronted the blind and savage rage of the 
South, in order to demonstrate to the world that 
the human beings who were held in bondage 
could vindicate their right to freedom by fighting 
and dying for it. He helped mightily in the great 
task of destroying human slavery, and in uplifting 
an oppressed and down-trodden race. He brought 
to this work the qualities which were particularly 
essential for his success. He had all that birth 
and wealth, breeding, education, and tradition 
could give. He offered up, in full measure, all 
those things which make life most worth living. 
He was handsome and beloved. He had a serene 
and beautiful nature, and was at once brave and 
simple. Above all things, he was fitted for the 
task which he performed and for the sacrifice 
which he made. The call of the country and of 
the time came to him, and he was ready. He has 
been singled out for remembrance from anion ^ 
many others of equal sacrifice, and a monument 
is rising to his memory in Boston, because it was 
his peculiar fortune to live and die for a great 
principle of humanity, and to stand forth as an 
ideal and beautiful figure in a struggle where the 
onward march of civilization was at stake. He 



260 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

lived in those few and crowded years a heroic life, 
and he met a heroic death. When he fell, sword 
in hand, on the parapet of Wagner, leading his 
black troops in a desperate assault, we can only 
say of him as Bunyan said of " Valiant for Truth " : 
" And then he passed over, and all the trumpets 
sounded for him on the other side." 



CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 



Wut 's wurds to them whose faith an' truth 

On war's red techstone rang true metal, 
Who ventered life an' love an' youth 

For the gret prize o' death in battle ? 
To him who, deadly hurt, agen 

Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, 
Tippin' with fire the bolt of men 

Thet rived the rebel line asunder ? 

— Lowell. 



CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 



CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL was born 
in Boston, January 2, 1835. He was the 
eldest son of Charles Russell and Anna Cabot 
(Jackson) Lowell, and the nephew of James Rus- 
sell Lowell. He bore the name, distinguished in 
many branches, of a family which was of the best 
New England stock. Educated in the Boston 
public schools, he entered Harvard College in 
1850. Although one of the youngest members 
of his class, he went rapidly to the front, and 
graduated not only the first scholar of his year, 
but the foremost man of his class. He was, how- 
ever, much more than a fine scholar, for even then 
he showed unusual intellectual qualities. He read 
widely and loved letters. He was a student of 
philosophy and religion, a thinker, and, best of 
all, a man of ideals — " the glory of youth," as he 
called them in his valedictory oration. But he 
was something still better and liner than a mere 

idealist ; he was a man of action, eager to put his 

263 



264 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

ideals into practice and bring them to the test of 
daily life. With his mind full of plans for raising 
the condition of workingmen while he made his 
own career, he entered the iron mills of the Ames 
Company, at Chicopee. Here he remained as 
a workingman for six months, and then received 
an important post in the Trenton Iron Works of 
New Jersey. There his health broke down. Con- 
sumption threatened him, and all his bright hopes 
and ambitions were overcast and checked. He 
was obliged to leave his business and go to Eu- 
rope, where he traveled for two years, fighting 
the dread disease that was upon him. In 1858 
he returned, and took a position on a Western 
railroad. Although the work was new to him, 
he manifested the same capacity that he had al- 
ways shown, and more especially his power over 
other men and his ability in organization. In two 
years his health was reestablished, and in i860 
he took charge of the Mount Savage Iron Works, 
at Cumberland, Maryland. He was there when 
news came of the attack made by the mob upon 
the 6th Massachusetts Regiment, in Baltimore. 
Two days later he had made his way to Washing- 
ton, one of the first comers from the North, and 
at once applied for a commission in the regular 
army. While he was waiting, he employed him- 
self in looking after the Massachusetts troops, 
and also, it is understood, as a scout for the Gov- 



CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 265 

ernment, dangerous work which suited his bold 
and adventurous nature. 

In May he received his commission as captain 
in the United States cavalry. Employed at first 
in recruiting and then in drill, he gave himself up 
to the study of tactics and the science of war. The 
career above all others to which he was suited 
had come to him. The field, at last, lay open be- 
fore him, where all his great qualities of mind and 
heart — his high courage, his power of leadership 
and of organization, and his intellectual powers 
— could find full play. He moved rapidly for- 
ward, just as he had already done in college and 
in business. His regiment, in 1862, was under 
Stoneman in the Peninsula, and was engaged in 
many actions, where Lowell's cool bravery made 
him constantly conspicuous. At the close of the 
campaign he was brevetted major, for distin- 
guished services at Williamsburg and Slatersville. 

In July, Lowell was detailed for duty as an aid 
to General McClellan. At Malvern Hill and 
South Mountain his gallantry and efficiency were 
strongly shown, but it was at Antietam that he 
distinguished himself most. Sent with orders to 
General Sedgwick's division, he found it retreat- 
ing in confusion, under a hot fire. He did not 
stop to think of orders, but rode rapidly from 
point to point of the line, rallying company after 
company by the mere force and power of his word 



266 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

and look, checking the rout, while the storm of 
bullets swept all round him. His horse was shot 
under him, a ball passed through his coat, another 
broke his sword-hilt, but he came off unscathed, 
and his service was recognized by his being sent 
to Washington with the captured flags of the 
enemy. 

The following winter he was ordered to Bos- 
ton, to recruit a regiment of cavalry, of which he 
was appointed colonel. While the recruiting was 
going on, a serious mutiny broke out, but the 
man who, like Cromwell's soldiers, "rejoiced 
greatly " in the day of battle was entirely capable 
of meeting this different trial. He shot the ring- 
leader dead, and by the force of his own strong 
will quelled the outbreak completely and at once. 

In May, he went to Virginia with his regiment, 
where he was engaged in resisting and following 
Mosby, and the following summer he was opposed 
to General Early in the neighborhood of Wash- 
ington. On July 14, when on a reconnoissance, 
his advance guard was surprised, and he met 
them retreating in wild confusion, with the enemy 
at their heels. Riding into the midst of the fum- 
tives, Lowell shouted, " Dismount ! " The sharp 
word of command, the presence of the man him- 
self, and the magic of discipline prevailed. The 
men sprang down, drew up in line, received the 
enemy with a heavy fire, and as the assailants 



CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 269 

wavered, Lowell advanced at once, and saved the 
day. 

In July, he was put in command of the " Pro- 
visional Brigade," and joined the army of the 
Shenandoah, of which in August General Sheri- 
dan took command. He was so struck with Low- 
ell's work during the next month that in Sep- 
tember he put him in command of the " Reserved 
Brigade," a very fine body of cavalry and artil- 
lery. In the fierce and continuous fighting that 
ensued Lowell was everywhere conspicuous, and 
in thirteen weeks he had as many horses shot 
under him. But he now had scope to show 
more than the dashing gallantry which distin- 
guished him always and everywhere. His genu- 
ine military ability, which surely would have led 
him to the front rank of soldiers had his life been 
spared, his knowledge, vigilance, and nerve all 
now became apparent. One brilliant action suc- 
ceeded another, but the end was drawing near. 
It came at last on the famous day of Cedar 
Creek, when Sheridan rode down from Winches- 
ter and saved the battle. Lowell had advanced 
early in the morning on the right, and his attack 
prevented the disaster on that wing which fell 
upon the surprised army. He then moved to 
cover the retreat, and around to the extreme left, 
where he held his position near Middletown 
against repeated assaults. Early in the day his 



270 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

last horse was shot under him, and a little later, 
in a charge at one o'clock, he was struck in the 
right breast by a spent ball, which embedded 
itself in the muscles of the chest. Voice and 
strength left him. "It is only my poor lung," 
he announced, as they urged him to go to the 
rear ; " you would not have me leave the field 
without having shed blood." As a matter of fact, 
the "poor" lung had collapsed, and there was 
an internal hemorrhage. He lay thus, under a 
rude shelter, for an hour and a half, and then 
came the order to advance along the whole line, 
the victorious advance of Sheridan and the ral- 
lied army. Lowell was helped to his saddle. 
" I feel well now," he whispered, and, giving 
his orders through one of his staff, had his bri- 
gade ready first. Leading the great charge, he 
dashed forward, and, just when the fight .was 
hottest, a sudden cry went up: "The colonel is 
hit ! " He fell from the saddle, struck in the neck 
by a ball which severed the spine, and was borne 
by his officers to a house in the village, where, 
clear in mind and calm in spirit, he died a few 
hours afterward. 

" I do not think there was a quality," said Gen- 
eral Sheridan, " which I could have added to 
Lowell. He was the perfection of a man and a 
soldier." On October 19, the very day on which 
he fell, his commission was signed to be a briea- 
dier-general. 



CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 271 

This was a noble life and a noble death, worthy 
of much thought and admiration from all men. 
Yet this is not all. It is well for us to see how 
such a man looked upon what he was doing, and 
what it meant to him. Lowell was one of the 
silent heroes so much commended by Carlyle. 
He never wrote of himself or his own exploits. 
As some one well said, he had " the impersonality 
of genius." But in a few remarkable passages in 
his private letters, we can see how the meaning 
of life and of that great time unrolled itself before 
his inner eyes. In June, 1861, he wrote: 

I cannot say I take any great pleasure in the contemplation 
of the future. I fancy you feel much as I do about the profit- 
ableness of a soldier's life, and would not think of trying it, 
were it not for a muddled and twisted idea that somehow or 
other this fight was going to be one in which decent men ought 
to engage for the sake of humanity, — I use the word in its or- 
dinary sense. It seems to me that within a year the slavery 
question will again take a prominent place, and that many cases 
will arise in which we may get fearfully in the wrong if we put 
our cause wholly in the hands of fighting men and foreign 
legions. 

In June, 1863, he wrote: 

I wonder whether my theories about self-culture, etc., would 
ever have been modified so much, whether I should ever have 
seen what a necessary failure they lead to, had it not been for 
this war. Now I feel every day, more and more, that a man 
has no right to himself at all ; that, indeed, he can do nothing 
useful unless he recognizes this clearly. 



272 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

Here again, on July 3, is a sentence which it is 
well to take to heart, and for all men to remember 
when their ears are deafened with the cry that 
war, no matter what the cause, is the worst thing 
possible, because it interferes with comfort, trade, 
and money-making: "Wars are bad," Lowell 
writes, "but there are many things far worse. 
Anything immediately comfortable in our affairs 
I don't see ; but comfortable times are not the 
ones that make a nation great." On July 24, he 
says : 

Many nations fail, that one may become great; ours will 
fail, unless we gird up our loins and do humble and honest 
days' work, without trying to do the thing by the job, or to get 
a great nation made by a patent process. It is not safe to say 
that we shall not have victories till we are ready for them. We 
shall have victories, and whether or no we are ready for them 
depends upon ourselves ; if we are not ready, we shall fail, — 
vot'/a tout. If you ask, what if we do fail ? I have nothing- to 
say ; I should n't cry over a nation or two, more or less, gone 
under. 

Finally, on September 10, a little more than a 
month before his death, he wrote to a disabled 
officer : 

I hope that you are going to live like a plain republican, 
mindful of the beauty and of the duty of simplicity. Nothing 
fancy now, sir, if you please; it 's disreputable to spend money 
when the government is so hard up, and when there are so many 
poor officers. I hope that you have outgrown all foolish ambi- 
tions, and are now content to become a " useful citizen." Don't 



CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 273 

grow rich ; if you once begin, you will find it much more diffi- 
cult to be a useful citizen. Don't seek office, but don't " disre- 
member " that the " useful citizen " always holds his time, his 
trouble, his money, and his life ready at the hint of his country. 
The useful citizen is a mighty, unpretending hero; but we are 
not going to have any country very long, unless such heroism 
is developed. There, what a stale sermon I 'm preaching. But, 
being a soldier, it does seem to me that I should like nothing 
so well as being a useful citizen. Well, trying to be one, I 
mean. I shall stay in the service, of course, till the war is 
over, or till I 'm disabled ; but then I look forward to a pleas- 
anter career. 

I believe I have lost all my ambitions. I don't think I would 
turn my hand to be a distinguished chemist or a famous math- 
ematician. All I now care about is to be a useful citizen, with 
money enough to buy bread and firewood, and to teach my 
children to ride on horseback, and look strangers in the face, 
especially Southern strangers. 

There are profound and lofty lessons of patriot- 
ism and conduct in these passages, and a very 
noble philosophy of life and duty both as a man 
and as a citizen of a great republic. They throw 
a flood of light on the great underlying forces 
which enabled the American people to save them- 
selves in that time of storm and stress. They are 
the utterances of a very young man, not thirty 
years old when he died in battle, but much be- 
yond thirty in head and heart, tried and taught 
as he had been in a great war. What precisely 
such young men thought they were fighting for is 
put strikingly by Lowell's younger brother James, 



274 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

who was killed at Glendale, July 4, 1862. In 1861, 
James Lowell wrote to his classmates, who had 
given him a sword : 

Those who died for die cause, not of die Constitution and 
the laws, — a superficial cause, the rebels have now the same, 
— but of civilization and law, and the self-restrained freedom 
which is their result. As the Greeks at Marathon and Salamis, 
Charles Martel and the Franks at Tours, and the Germans at 
the Danube, saved Europe from Asiatic barbarism, so we, at 
places to be famous in future times, shall have saved America 
from a similar tide of barbarism ; and we may hope to be 
purified and strengthened ourselves by the struggle. 

This is a remarkable passage and a deep 
thought. Coming from a young fellow of twenty- 
four, it is amazing. But the fiery trial of the times 
taught fiercely and fast, and James Lowell, just 
out of college, could see in the red light around 
him that not merely the freedom of a race. and 
the saving of a nation were at stake, but that be- 
hind all this was the forward movement of civili- 
zation, brought once again to the arbitrament of 
the sword. Slavery was barbarous and barbarizing. 
It had draped down the civilization of the South 
to a level from which it would take Generations to 
rise up again. Was this barbarous force now to 
prevail in the United States in the nineteenth 
century ? Was it to destroy a great nation, and 
fetter human progress in the New World ? That 
was the great question back of, beyond and 



CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 275 

above all. Should this force of barbarism sweep 
conquering over the land, wrecking an empire 
in its onward march, or should it be flung back 
as Miltiades flung back Asia at Marathon, and 
Charles Martel stayed the coming of Islam at 
Tours ? The brilliant career, the shining courage, 
best seen always where the dead were lying thick- 
est, the heroic death of Charles Lowell, are good 
for us all to know and to remember. Yet this 
imperfect story of his life has not been placed here 
for these things alone. Many thousand others, 
officers and soldiers alike, in the great Civil War 
gave their lives as freely as he, and brought to 
the service of their country the best that was in 
them. He was a fine example of many who, like 
him, offered up all they had for their country. But 
Lowell was also something more than this. He 
was a high type of a class, and a proof of certain 
very important things, and this is a point worthy 
of much consideration. 

The name of John Hampden stands out in the 
history of the English-speaking people, admired 
and unquestioned. He was neither a great states- 
man, nor a great soldier ; he was not a brilliant 
orator, nor a famous writer. He fell bravely in 
an unimportant skirmish at Chalgrove Field, fight- 
ing for freedom and what he believed to be right. 
Yet he fills a great place in the past, both for 
what he did and what he was, and the reason for 



276 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

this is of high importance. John Hampden was 
a gentleman, with all the advantages that the ac- 
cidents of birth could give. He was rich, educated, 
well born, of high traditions. English civilization 
of that day could produce nothing better. The 
memorable fact is that, when the time came for 
the test, he did not fail. He was a type of what 
was best among the English people, and when 
the call sounded, he was ready. He was brave, 
honest, high-minded, and he gave all, even his 
life, to his country. In the hour of need, the rep- 
resentative of what was best and most fortunate 
in England was put to the touch, and proved to 
be current gold. All men knew what that meant, 
and Hampden's memory is one of the glories of 
the English-speaking people. 

Charles Eowell has the same meaning for us 
when rightly understood. He had all that birth, 
breeding, education, and tradition could give. 
The resources of our American life and civilization 
could produce nothing better. How would he 
and such men as he stand the great ordeal when 
it came? If wealth, education, and breeding were 
to result in a class who could only carp and criti- 
cize, accumulate money, give way to self-indul- 
gence, and cherish low foreign ideals, then would 
it have appeared that there was a radical unsound- 
ness in our society, refinement would have been 
proved to be weakness, and the highest education 



CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 277 

would have been shown to be a curse, rather than 
a blessing. But Charles Lowell, and hundreds of 
others like him, in greater or less degree, all over 
the land, met the great test and emerged trium- 
phant. The Harvard men may be taken as fairly 
representing the colleges and universities of 
America. Harvard had, in i860, 4157 living 
graduates, and 823 students, presumably over 
eighteen years old. Probably 3000 of her stu- 
dents and graduates were of military age, and not 
physically disqualified for military service. Of 
this number, 1230 entered the Union army or 
navy. One hundred and fifty-six died in service, 
and 67 were killed in action. Many did not go 
who might have gone, unquestionably, but the rec- 
ord is a noble one. Nearly one man of every two 
Harvard men came forward to serve his country 
when war was at our gates, and this proportion 
holds true, no doubt, of the other universities of 
the North. It is well for the country, well for 
learning, well for our civilization, that such a 
record was made at such a time. Charles Lowell, 
and those like him, showed, once for all, that the 
men to whom fortune had been kindest were ca- 
pable of the noblest patriotism, and shrank from 
no sacrifices. They taught the lesson which can 
never be heard too often — that the man to whom 
the accidents of birth and fortune have given most 
is the man who owes most to his country. If 



278 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

patriotism should exist anywhere, it should be 
strongest with such men as these, and their service 
should be ever ready. How nobly Charles Lowell 
in this spirit answered the great question, his life 
and death, alike victorious, show to all men. 



SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK 



Inspired repulsed battalions to engage, 

And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. 

— Addison. 



SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK 

(GENERAL SHERIDAN took command of 
X the Army of the Shenandoah in August, 
1864. His coming" was the signal for aggressive 
fighting, and for a series of brilliant victories over 
the rebel army. He defeated Early at Winches- 
ter and again at Fisher's Hill, while General Tor- 
bert whipped Rosser in a subsequent action, where 
the rout of the rebels was so complete that the 
fight was known as the " Woodstock races." 
Sheridan's plan after this was to terminate his 
campaign north of Staunton, and, returning thence, 
to desolate the Valley, so as to make it untenable 
for the Confederates, as well as useless as a gran- 
ary or storehouse, and then move the bulk of his 
army through Washington, and unite them with 
General Grant in front of Petersburg. Grant, 
however, and the authorities at Washington, were 
in favor of Sheridan's driving Early into Eastern 
Virginia, and following up that line, which Sheri- 
dan himself believed to be a false move. This 
important matter was in debate until October 16, 
when Sheridan, having left the main body of his 



282 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

army at Cedar Creek under General Wright, de- 
termined to go to Washington, and discuss the 
question personally with General Halleck and the 
Secretary of War. He reached Washington on 
the morning of the i 7th about eight o'clock, left 
there at twelve, and got back to Martinsburg the 
same night about dark. At Martinsburg he spent 
the night, and the next day, with his escort, rode 
to Winchester, reaching that point between three 
and four o'clock in the afternoon of the 18th. He 
there heard that all was quiet at Cedar Creek and 
along the front, and went to bed, expecting to 
reach his headquarters and join the army the next 
day. 

About six o'clock, on the morning of the 19th, 
it was reported to him that artillery firing could 
be heard in the direction of Cedar Creek, but as 
the sound was stated to be irregular and fitful, he 
thought it only a skirmish. He, nevertheless, 
arose at once, and had just finished dressing when 
another officer came in, and reported that the firing 
was still going on in the same direction, but that 
it did not sound like a general battle. Still Sher- 
idan was uneasy, and, after breakfasting, mounted 
his horse between eight and nine o'clock, and 
rode slowly through Winchester. When he 
reached the edge of the town he halted a moment, 
and then heard the firing of artillery in an unceas- 
ing roar. He now felt confident that a o-eneral 



SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK 283 

battle was in progress, and, as he rode forward, 
he was convinced, from the rapid increase of 
the sound, that his army was falling back. After 
he had crossed Mill Creek, just outside Winches- 
ter, and made the crest of the rise beyond the 
stream, there burst upon his view the spectacle 
of a panic-stricken army. Hundreds of slightly 
wounded men, with hundreds more unhurt, but 
demoralized, together with baggage wagons and 
trains, were all pressing to the rear, in hopeless 
confusion. 

There was no doubt now that a disaster had 
occurred at the front. A fugitive told Sheridan 
that the army was broken and in full retreat, and 
that all was lost. Sheridan at once sent word to 
Colonel Edwards, commanding a brigade at Win- 
Chester, to stretch his troops across the valley, 
and stop all fugitives. His first idea was to make 
a stand there, but, as he rode alono-, a different 
plan flashed into his mind. He believed that his 
troops had great confidence in him, and he deter- 
mined to try to restore their broken ranks, and, 
instead of merely holding the ground at Winches- 
ter, to rally his army, and lead them forward again 
to Cedar Creek. He had hardly made up his 
mind to this course, when news was brought to 
him that his headquarters at Cedar Creek were 
captured, and the troops dispersed. He started 
at once, with about twenty men as an escort, and 



284 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

rode rapidly to the front. As he passed along, 
the unhurt men, who thickly lined the road, recog- 
nized him, and, as they did so, threw up their 
hats, shouldered their muskets, and followed him 
as fast as they could on foot. His officers rode 
out on either side to tell the stragglers that the 
general had returned, and, as the news spread, 
the retreating men in every direction rallied, and 
turned their faces toward the battle-field they had 
left. 

In his memoirs, Sheridan says, in speaking of 
his ride through the retreating troops : "I said 
nothing, except to remark, as I rode among them, 
'If I had been with you this morning, this disas- 
ter would not have happened. We must face 
the other way. We will go back and recover our 
camp."' Thus he galloped on over the twenty 
miles, with the men rallying behind him, and fol- 
lowing" him in ever increasing numbers. As he 
went by, the panic of retreat was replaced by the 
ardor of battle. Sheridan had not overestimated 
the power of enthusiasm or his own ability to rouse 
it to fighting pitch. He pressed steadily on to 
the front, until at last he came up to Getty's divi- 
sion of the 6th Corps, which, with the cavalry, 
were the only troops who held their line and were 
resisting the enemy. Getty's division was about 
a mile north of Middletown on some slightly rising 
ground, and were skirmishing with the enemy's 




ffi^^l^e^-S*- 



SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK 287 

pickets. Jumping a rail fence, Sheridan rode to 
the crest of the hill, and, as he took off his hat, 
the men rose up from behind the barricades with 
cheers of recognition. 

It is impossible to follow in detail Sheridan's 
actions from that moment, but he first brought up 
the 19th Corps and the two divisions of Wright 
to the front. He then communicated with Colonel 
Lowell, who was fighting near Middletown with 
his men dismounted, and asked him if he could 
hold on where he was, to which Lowell replied 
in the affirmative. All this and many similar 
quickly-given orders consumed a great deal of 
time, but still the men were getting into line, and 
at last, seeing that the enemy were about to 
renew the attack, Sheridan rode along the line so 
that the men could all see him. He was received 
with the wildest enthusiasm as he rode by, and 
the spirit of the army was restored. The rebel 
attack was made shortly after noon, and was 
repulsed by General Emory. 

This done, Sheridan again set to work to get- 
ting his line completely restored, while General 
Merritt charged and drove off an exposed battery 
of the Confederates. By half-past three Sheridan 
was ready to attack. The fugitives of the morning, 
whom he had rallied as he rode from Winchester, 
were again in their places, and the different divi- 
sions were all disposed in their proper positions. 



288 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

With the order to advance, the whole line pressed 
forward. The Confederates at first resisted stub- 
bornly, and then began to retreat. On they went 
past Cedar Creek, and there, where the pike made 
a sharp turn to the west toward Fisher's Hill, 
Merritt and Custer fell on the flank of the retreat- 
ing- columns, and the rebel army fell back, routed 
and broken, up the Valley. The day had begun 
in route and defeat ; it ended in a great victory 
for the Union army. 

How near we had been to a terrible disaster can 
be realized by recalling what had happened before 
the general galloped down from Winchester. 

In Sheridan's absence, Early, soon after dawn, 
had made an unexpected attack on our army at 
Cedar Creek. Surprised by the assault, the na- 
tional troops had given way in all directions, and 
a panic had set in. Getty's division with Lowell's 
cavalry held on at Middletown, but, with this ex- 
ception, the rout was complete. When Sheridan 
rode out of Winchester, he met an already beaten 
army. His first thought was the natural one to 
make a stand at Winchester and rally his troops 
about him there. His second thought was the 
inspiration of the great commander. He believed 
his men would rally as soon as they saw him. He 
believed that enthusiasm was one of the great 
weapons of war, and that this was the moment of 
all others when it miefht be used with decisive 



SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK 289 

advantage. With this thought in his mind he 
abandoned the idea of forming his men at Win- 
chester, and rode bareheaded through the fugi- 
tives, swinging his hat, straight for the front, and 
calling on his men as he passed to follow him. 
As the soldiers saw him, they turned and rushed 
after him. He had not calculated in vain upon 
the power of personal enthusiasm, but, at the same 
time, he did not rely upon any wild rush to save 
the day. The moment he reached the field of 
battle, he set to work with the coolness of a great 
soldier to make all the dispositions, first, to repel 
the enemy, and then to deliver an attack which 
could not be resisted. One division after another 
was rapidly brought into line and placed in posi- 
tion, the thin ranks filling fast with the soldiers 
who had recovered from their panic, and followed 
Sheridan and the black horse all the way down 
from Winchester. He had been already two hours 
on the field when, at noon, he rode along the line, 
again formed for battle. Most of the officers and 
men then thought he had just come, while in 
reality it was his own rapid work which had put 
them in the line along which he was riding. 

Once on the field of battle, the rush and hurry 
of the desperate ride from Winchester came to an 
end. First the line was reformed, then the enemy's 
assault was repulsed, and it was made impossible 

for them to again take the offensive. But Sheri- 

25 



290 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

dan, undazzled by his brilliant success up to this 
point, did not mar his work by overhaste. Two 
hours more passed before he was ready, and then, 
when all was prepared, with his ranks established 
and his army ranged in position, he moved his 
whole line forward, and won one of the most bril- 
liant battles of the war, having, by his personal 
power over his troops, and his genius in action, 
snatched a victory from a day which began in 
surprise, disaster, and defeat. 



LIEUTENANT CUSHING AND THE 
RAM "ALBEMARLE" 



God give us peace ! Not such as lulls to sleep, 
But sword on thigh, and brow with purpose knit ! 
And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep, 
Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit, 
And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap ! 

— Lowell. 



LIEUTENANT CUSHING AND THE RAM 
"ALBEMARLE" 



THE great Civil War was remarkable in many 
ways, but in no way more remarkable than 
for the extraordinary mixture of inventive mechan- 
ical genius and of resolute daring shown by the 
combatants. After the first year, when the con- 
testants had settled down to real fig-hting-, and the 
preliminary mob work was over, the battles were 
marked by their extraordinary obstinacy and 
heavy loss. In no European conflict since the 
close of the Napoleonic wars has the fighting been 
anything like as obstinate and as bloody as was 
the fighting in our own Civil War. In addition to 
this fierce and dogged courage, this splendid fight- 
ing capacity, the contest also brought out the 
skilled inventive power of engineer and mechani- 
cian in a way that few other contests have ever 
done. 

This was especially true of the navy. The fight- 
ing under and against Farragut and his fellow- 
admirals revolutionized naval warfare. The Civil 
War marks the break between the old style and 
the new. Terrible encounters took place when 



294 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

the terrible new engines of war were brought into 
action for the first time ; and one of these en- 
counters has given an example which, for heroic 
daring combined with cool intelligence, is unsur- 
passed in all time. 

The Confederates showed the same skill and 
energy in building their great ironclad rams as 
the men of the Union did in building the monitors 
which were so often pitted against them. Both 
sides, but especially the Confederates, also used 
stationary torpedoes, and, on a number of occa- 
sions, torpedo-boats likewise. These torpedo- 
boats were sometimes built to go under the water. 
One such, after repeated failures, was employed 
by the Confederates, with equal gallantry and 
success, in sinking a Union sloop of war off 
Charleston harbor, the torpedo-boat itself going 
down to the bottom with its victim, all on board 
being drowned. The other type of torpedo-boat 
was simply a swift, ordinary steam-launch, oper- 
ated above water. 

It was this last type of boat which Lieuten- 
ant W. B. Cushing brought down to Albemarle 
Sound to use against the great Confederate ram 
Albemarle. The ram had been built for the pur- 
pose of destroying the Union blockading forces. 
Steaming down river, she had twice attacked the 
Federal gunboats, and in each case had sunk or 
disabled one or more of them, with little injury to 



CUSHING AND THE "ALBEMARLE" 295 

herself. She had retired up the river again to lie 
at her wharf and refit. The gunboats had suffered 
so severely as to make it a certainty that when 
she came out again, thoroughly fitted to renew 
the attack, the wooden vessels would be destroyed ; 
and while she was in existence, the Union vessels 
could not reduce the forts and coast towns. Just 
at this time Cushing came down from the North 
with his swift little torpedo-boat, an open launch, 
with a spar rigged out in front, the torpedo being 
placed at the end. The crew of the launch con- 
sisted of fifteen men, CushinQ- beino- in command. 
He not only guided his craft, but himself handled 
the torpedo by means of two small ropes, one of 
which put it in place, while the other exploded it. 
The action of the torpedo was complicated, and it 
could not have been operated in a time of tre- 
mendous excitement save by a man of the utmost 
nerve and self-command ; but Cushing had both. 
He possessed precisely that combination of reck- 
less courage, presence of mind, and high mental 
capacity necessary to the man who leads a forlorn 
hope under peculiarly difficult circumstances. 

On the night of October 27, 1864, Cushing 
slipped away from the blockading fleet, and 
steamed up river toward the wharf, a dozen miles 
distant, where the great ram lay. The Confede- 
rates were watchful to guard against surprise, for 
they feared lest their foes should try to destroy 



296 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

the ram before she got a chance to come down 
and attack them again in the Sound. She. lay un- 
der the guns of a fort, with a regiment of troops 
ready at a moment's notice to turn out and defend 
her. Her own guns were kept always clear for 
action, and she was protected by a great boom of 
logs thrown out roundabout ; of which last defense 
the Northerners knew nothing. 

Cushing went up-stream with the utmost cau- 
tion, and by good luck passed, unnoticed, a Con- 
federate lookout below the ram. 

About midnight he made his assault. Steaming 
quietly on through the black water, and feeling 
his way cautiously toward where he knew the 
town to be, he finally made out the loom of the 
Albemarle through the night, and at once drove 
at her. He was almost upon her before he was 
discovered ; then the crew and the soldiers on the 
wharf opened fire, and, at the same moment, he 
was brought-to by the boom, the existence of 
which he had not known. The rifle balls were 
singing round him as he stood erect, guiding his 
launch, and he heard the bustle of the men aboard 
the ram, and the noise of the great guns as they 
were got ready. Backing off, he again went all 
steam ahead, and actually surged over the slippery 
logs of the boom. Meanwhile, on the Albemarle 
the sailors were running to quarters, and the sol- 
diers were swarming down to aid in her defense ; 




THE BLOWING-UP OF THE "ALBEMARLE. 



CUSHING AND THE "ALBEMARLE" 299 

and the droning bullets came always thicker 
through the dark night. Cushing still stood up- 
right in his little craft, guiding and controlling 
her by voice and signal, while in his hands he 
kept the ropes which led to the torpedo. As the 
boat slid forward over the boom, he brought the 
torpedo full against the somber side of the huge 
ram, and instantly exploded it, almost at the same 
time that the pivot-gun of the ram, loaded with 
grape, was fired point-blank at him not ten yards 
off. 

At once the ram settled, the launch sinking at 
the same moment, while Cushing and his men 
swam for their lives. Most of them sank or were 
captured, but Cushing reached mid-stream. Hear- 
ing something splashing in the darkness, he swam 
toward it, and found that it was one of his crew. 
He went to his rescue, and they kept together for 
some time, but the sailor's strength ^ave out, and 
he finally sank. In the pitch darkness Cushing 
could form no idea where he was ; and when, 
chilled through, and too exhausted to rise to his 
feet, he finally reached shore, shortly before dawn, 
he found that he had swum back and landed but 
a few hundred feet below the sunken ram. All 
that day he remained within easy musket- shot of 
where his foes were swarming about the fort and 
the great drowned ironclad. He hardly dared 
move, and until the afternoon he lay without food, 



3 oo HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

and without protection from the heat or venomous 
insects. Then he managed to slip unobserved 
into the dense swamp, and began to make his 
way to the fleet. Toward evening he came out 
on a small stream, near a camp of Confederate 
soldiers. They had moored to the bank a skiff, 
and, with equal stealth and daring, he managed 
to steal this and to paddle down-stream. Hour 
after hour he paddled on through the fading light, 
and then through the darkness. At last, utterly 
worn out, he found the squadron, and was picked 
up. At once the ships weighed ; and they speedily 
captured every coast town and fort, for their 
dreaded enemy was no longer in the way. The 
fame of Cushing's deed went all over the North, 
and his name will stand forever among the bright- 
est on the honor-roll of the American navy. 



FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 



26 



Ha, old ship, do they thrill, 

The brave two hundred scars 

You got in the river wars ? 

That were leeched with clamorous skill 

(Surgery savage and hard), 

At the Brooklyn Navy Yard. 

How the guns, as with cheer and shout, 

Our tackle-men hurled them out, 

Brought up in the waterways 

... As we fired, at the flash 

'T was lightning and black eclipse 

With a bellowing sound and crash. 

The Dahlgrens are dumb, 
Dumb are the mortars ; 
Never more shall the drum 
Beat to colors and quarters — 
The great guns are silent. 

— Henry Howard Browne 11. 



FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 



DURING the Civil War our navy produced, 
as it has always produced in every war, 
scores of capable officers, of brilliant single-ship 
commanders, of men whose daring courage made 
them fit leaders in any hazardous enterprise. In 
this respect the Union seamen in the Civil War 
merely lived up to the traditions of their service. 
In a service with such crlorious memories it was a 
difficult thing to establish a new record in feats of 
personal courage or warlike address. Biddle, in 
the Revolutionary War, fighting his little frigate 
against a ship of the line until she blew up with 
all on board, after inflicting severe loss on her 
huge adversary ; Decatur, heading the rush of 
the boarders in the night attack when they swept 
the wild Moorish pirates from the decks of their 
anchored prize ; Lawrence, dying with the words 
on his lips, " Don't give up the ship " ; and Perry, 
triumphantly steering his bloody sloop-of-war to 
victory with the same words blazoned on his ban- 

3°3 



304 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

ner — men like these, and like their fellows, who 
won glory in desperate conflicts with the regular 
warships and heavy privateers of England and 
France, or with the corsairs of the Barbary States, 
left behind a reputation which was hardly to be 
dimmed, though it might be emulated, by later 
feats of mere daring. 

But vital though daring is, indispensable though 
desperate personal prowess and readiness to take 
chances are to the make-up of a fighting navy, 
other qualities are needed in addition to fit a man 
for a place among the great sea-captains of all 
time. It was the good fortune of the navy in the 
Civil War to produce one admiral of renown, one 
peer of all the mighty men who have ever waged 
war on the ocean. Farragut was not only the 
greatest admiral since Nelson, but, with the sole 
exception of Nelson, he was as great an admiral 
as ever sailed the broad or the narrow seas. 

David Glasgow Farragut was born in Tennes- 
see. He was appointed to the navy while living 
in Louisiana, but when the war came he remained 
loyal to the Union flag. This puts him in the 
category of those men who deserved best of their 
country in the Civil War ; the men who were 
Southern by birth, but who stood loyally by 
the Union; the men like General Thomas of Vir- 
ginia, and like Farragut's own flag-captain at the 
battle of Mobile Bay, Drayton of South Carolina. 



FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 305 

It was an easy thing in the North to support the 
Union, and it was a double disgrace to be, like 
Vallandigham and the Copperheads, against it ; 
and in the South there were a great multitude of 
men, as honorable as they were brave, who, from 
the best of motives, went with their States when 
they seceded, or even advocated secession. But 
the highest and loftiest patriots, those who de- 
served best of the whole country, were the men 
from the South who possessed such heroic cou- 
rage, and such lofty fealty to the high ideal of the 
Union, that they stood by the flag when their 
fellows deserted it, and unswervingly followed a 
career devoted to the cause of the whole nation 
and of the whole people. Among all those who 
fought in this, the greatest struggle for righteous- 
ness which the present century has seen, these 
men stand preeminent ; and among them Farra- 
gut stands first. It was his good fortune that by 
his life he offered an example, not only of patriot- 
ism, but of supreme skill and daring in his pro- 
fession. He belongs to that class of commanders 
who possess in the highest degree the qualities 
of courage and daring, of readiness to assume 
responsibility, and of willingness to run great 
risks ; the qualities without which no commander, 
however cautious and able, can ever become really 
great. He possessed also the unwearied capacity 
for taking thought in advance, which enabled him 



306 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY . 

to prepare for victory before the day of battle 
came ; and he added to this an inexhaustible fer- 
tility of resource and presence of mind under no 
matter what strain. 

His whole career should be taught every Amer- 
ican schoolboy, for when that schoolboy becomes 
a voter he should have learned the lesson that the 
United States, while it ought not to become an 
overgrown military power, should always have a 
first-class navy, formidable from the number of its 
ships, and formidable still more from the excel- 
lence of the individual ships and the high charac- 
ter of the officers and men. Farragut saw the 
war of 1812, in which, though our few frigates 
and sloops fought some glorious actions, our coasts 
were blockaded and insulted, and the Capitol at 
Washington burned, because our statesmen and 
our people had been too short-sighted to build a 
big fighting navy ; and Farragut was able to per- 
form his great feats on the Gulf coast because, 
when the Civil War broke out, we had a navy 
which, though too small in point of numbers, was 
composed of ships as good as any afloat. 

Another lesson to be learned by a study of his 
career is that no man in a profession so highly 
technical as that of the navy can win a great suc- 
cess unless he has been brought up in and spe- 
cially trained for that profession, and has devoted 
his life to the work. This fact was made plainly 



FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 309 

evident in the desperate hurly-burly of the night 
battle with the Confederate flotilla below New 
Orleans — the incidents of this hurly-burly being, 
perhaps, best described by the officer who, in his 
report of his own share in it, remarked that " all 
sorts of things happened." Of the Confederate 
rams there were two, commanded by trained offi- 
cers formerly in the United States navy, Lieuten- 
ants Kennon and Warley. Both of these men 
handled their little vessels with remarkable cou- 
rage, skill, and success, fighting them to the last, 
and inflicting serious and heavy damage upon the 
Union fleet. The other vessels of the flotilla were 
commanded by men who had not been in the reg- 
ular navy, who were merely Mississippi River 
captains, and the like. These men were, doubt- 
less, naturally as brave as any of the regular offi- 
cers ; but, with one or two exceptions, they failed 
ignobly in the time of trial, and showed a fairly 
startling contrast with the regular naval officers 
beside or against whom they fought. This is a 
fact which may well be pondered by the ignorant 
or unpatriotic people who believe that the United 
States does not need a navy, or that it can impro- 
vise one, and improvise officers to handle it, when- 
ever the moment of need arises. 

When a boy, Farragut had sailed as a midship- 
man on the Essex in her famous cruise to the 
South Pacific, and lived through the murderous 



310 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

fight in which, after losing three fifths of her crew, 
she was captured by two British vessels. Step by 
step he rose in his profession, but never had an 
opportunity of distinguishing himself until, when 
he was sixty years old, the Civil War broke out. 
He was then made flag officer of the Gulf squad- 
ron ; and the first success which the Union forces 
met with in the southwest was scored by him, 
when one night he burst the iron chains which 
the Confederates had stretched across the Missis- 
sippi, and, stemming the swollen flood with his 
splendidly-handled steam-frigates, swept past the 
forts, sank the rams and gunboats that sought to 
bar his path, and captured the city of New Or- 
leans. After further exciting service on the Mis- 
sissippi, service in which he turned a new chapter 
in the history of naval warfare by showing the 
possibilities of heavy sea-going vessels when used 
on great rivers, he again went back to the Gulf, 
and, in the last year of the war, was allotted the 
task of attempting the capture of Mobile, the only 
important port still left open to the Confederates. 
In August, 1864, Farragut was lying with his 
fleet off Mobile Bay. For months he had been 
eating out his heart while undergoing the wearing 
strain of the blockade ; sympathizing, too, with 
every detail of the doubtful struggle on land. " I 
get right sick, every now and then, at the bad 
news," he once wrote home ; and then again, " The 



FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 311 

victory of the Kearsarge over the Alabama raised 
me up ; I would sooner have fought that fight 
than any ever fought on t^e ocean." As for him- 
self, all he wished was a chance to fight, for he 
had the fighting temperament, and he knew that, 
in the long run, an enemy can only be beaten by 
being out-fought, as well as out-manceuvered. 
He possessed a splendid self-confidence, and 
scornfully threw aside any idea that he would be 
defeated, while he utterly refused to be daunted 
by the rumors of the formidable nature of the de- 
fenses against which he was to act. " I mean to 
be whipped or to whip my enemy, and not to be 
scared to death," he remarked in speaking of these 
rumors. 

The Confederates who held Mobile used all 
their skill in preparing for defense, and all their 
courage in making that defense good. The mouth 
of the bay was protected by two fine forts, heavily 
armed, Morgan and Gaines. The winding chan- 
nels were filled with torpedoes, and, in addition, 
there was a flotilla consisting of three gunboats, 
and, above all, a big ironclad ram, the Tennessee, 
one of the most formidable vessels then afloat. 
She was not fast, but she carried six high- power 
rifled guns, and her armor was very powerful, 
while, being of light draft, she could take a posi- 
tion where Farragut's deep-sea ships could not 
get at her. 



3 i2 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

Farragut made his attack with four monitors, 
— two of them, the Tecumseh and Manhattan, 
of large size, carrying 15-inch guns, and the other 
two, the Winnebago and Chickasaw, smaller and 
lighter, with 11 -inch guns, — and the wooden ves- 
sels, fourteen in number. Seven of these were 
big sloops-of-war, of the general type of Farra- 
gut's own flagship, the Hartford. She was a 
screw steamer, but was a full-rigged ship likewise, 
with twenty-two 9-inch shell guns, arranged in 
broadside, and carrying a crew of three hundred 
men. The other seven were ligfht cfunboats. 
When Farragut prepared for the assault, he ar- 
ranged to make the attack with his wooden ships 
in double column. The seven most powerful were 
formed on the right, in line ahead, to engage Fort 
Morgan, the heaviest of the two forts, which had 
to be passed close inshore to the right. The light 
vessels were lashed each to the left of one of the 
heavier ones. By this arrangement each pair of 
ships was given a double chance to escape, if ren- 
dered helpless by a shot in the boiler or other 
vital part of the machinery. The heaviest ships 
led in the fighting column, the first place being 
taken by the Brooklyn and her gunboat consort, 
while the second position was held by Farragut 
himself in the Hartfoi'd, with the little Metacomet 
lashed alongside. He waited to deliver the attack 
until the tide and the wind should be favorable, 



FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 313 

and made all his preparations with the utmost 
care and thoughtfulness. Preeminently a man 
who could inspire affection in others, both the offi- 
cers and men of the fleet regarded him with fer- 
vent loyalty and absolute trust. 

The attack was made early on the morning of 
August 5. Soon after midnight the weather be- 
came hot and calm, and at three the Admiral 
learned that a light breeze had sprung up from 
the quarter he wished, and he at once announced, 
" Then we will go in this morning." At day- 
break he was at breakfast when the word was 
brought that the ships were all lashed in couples. 
Turning quietly to his captain, he said, " Well, 
Drayton, we might as well get under way ; " and 
at half-past six the monitors stood down to their 
stations, while the column of wooden ships was 
formed, all with the United States flag hoisted, 
not only at the peak, but also at every masthead. 
The four monitors, trusting in their iron sides, 
steamed in between the wooden ships and the 
fort. Every man in every craft was thrilling with 
the fierce excitement of battle ; but in the minds 
of most there lurked a vacnie feeling of unrest over 
one danger. For their foes who fought in sight, 
for the forts, the gunboats, and the great ironclad 
ram, they cared nothing ; but all, save the very 
boldest, were at times awed, and rendered uneasy 
by the fear of the hidden and the unknown. Dan- 



314 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

ger which is great and real, but which is shrouded 
in mystery, is always very awful ; and the ocean 
veterans dreaded the torpedoes — the mines of 
death — which lay, they knew not where, thickly 
scattered through the channels along which they 
were to thread their way. 

The tall ships were in fighting trim, with spars 
housed, and canvas furled. The decks were strewn 
with sawdust; every man was in his place; the 
guns were ready, and except for the song of the 
sounding-lead there was silence in the ships as 
they moved forward through the glorious morn- 
ing. It was seven o'clock when the battle began, 
as the Tecumseh, the leading monitor, fired two 
shots at the fort. In a few minutes Fort Morgan 
was ablaze with the flash of her guns, and the 
leading wooden vessels were sending back broad- 
side after broadside. Farragut stood in the port 
main-rigging, and as the smoke increased he grad- 
ually climbed higher, until he was close by the 
maintop, where the pilot was stationed for the 
sake of clearer vision. The captain, fearing lest 
by one of the accidents of battle the great admiral 
should lose his footing, sent aloft a man with a 
lasher, and had a turn or two taken around his 
body in the shrouds, so that he might not fall if 
wounded ; for the shots were flying thick. 

At first the ships used only their bow guns, and 
the Confederate ram, with her great steel rifles, 



FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 315 

and her three consorts, taking station where they 
could rake the advancing fleet, caused much loss. 
In twenty minutes after the opening of the fight 
the ships of the van were fairly abreast of the fort, 
their guns leaping and thundering ; and under 
the weight of their terrific fire that of the fort vis- 
ibly slackened. All was now uproar and slaugh- 
ter, the smoke drifting off in clouds. The decks 
were reddened and ghastly with blood, and the 
wreck of flying splinters drove across them at each 
discharge. The monitor Tecumsch alone was si- 
lent. After firing the first two shots, her com- 
mander, Captain Craven, had loaded his two big 
guns with steel shot, and, thus prepared, reserved 
himself for the Confederate ironclad, which he 
had set his heart upon taking or destroying sin- 
gle-handed. The two columns of monitors and 
the wooden ships lashed in pairs were now ap- 
proaching the narrowest part of the channel, where 
the torpedoes lay thickest ; and the guns of the 
vessels fairly overbore and quelled the fire from 
the fort. All was well, provided only the two col- 
umns could push straight on without hesitation ; 
but just at this moment a terrible calamity befell 
the leader of the monitors. The Tecumseh, stand- 
ing straight for the Tennessee, was within two 
hundred yards of her foe, when a torpedo suddenly 
exploded beneath her. The monitor was about 
five hundred yards from the Hartford, and from 



316 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

the maintop Farragut, looking at her, saw her 
reel violently from side to side, lurch heavily over, 
and go down head-foremost, her screw revolving 
wildly in the air as she disappeared. Captain 
Craven, one of the gentlest and bravest of men, 
was in the pilot-house with the pilot at the time. 
As she sank, both rushed to the narrow door, but 
there was time for only one to get out. Craven 
was ahead, but drew to one side, saying, " After 
you, pilot." As the pilot leaped through, the water 
rushed in, and Craven and all his crew, save two 
men, settled to the bottom in their iron coffin. 

None of the monitors were awed or daunted by 
the fate of their consort, but drew steadily on- 
ward. In the bigger monitors the captains, like 
the crews, had remained within the iron walls ; 
but on the two light crafts the commanders had 
found themselves so harassed by their cramped 
quarters, that they both stayed outside on the 
deck. As these two steamed steadily ahead, 
the men on the flagship saw Captain Stevens, of 
the Winnebago, pacing calmly, from turret to tur- 
ret, on his unwieldy iron craft, under the full fire of 
the fort. The captain of the Chickasaw, Perkins, 
was the youngest commander in the fleet, and as 
he passed the Hartford, he stood on top of the 
turret, waving his hat and dancing about in wild- 
est excitement and delight. 

But, for a moment, the nerve of the commander 



FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 317 

of the Brooklyn failed him. The awful fate of the 
Tecumseh and the sight of a number of objects in 
the channel ahead, which seemed to be torpedoes, 
caused him to hesitate. He stopped his ship, 
and then backed water, making- sternway to the 
Hartford, so as to stop her also. It was the crisis 
of the fiorht and the crisis of Farragait's career. 
The column was halted in a narrow channel, right 
under the fire of the forts. A few moments' delay 
and confusion, and the golden chance would have 
been past, and the only question remaining would 
have been as to the magnitude of the disaster. 
Ahead lay terrible danger, but ahead lay also 
triumph. It might be that the first ship to go 
through would be sacrificed to the torpedoes ; it 
might be that others would be sacrificed ; but go 
through the fleet must. Farra^ut signaled to the 
Brooklyn to go ahead, but she still hesitated. Im- 
mediately, the admiral himself resolved to take the 
lead. Backing hard he got clear of the Brooklyn, 
twisted his ship's prow short round, and then, 
going ahead fast, he dashed close under the 
Brooklyn's stern, straight at the line of buoys in 
the channel. As he thus went by the Brookly?t, 
a warning cry came from her that there were tor- 
pedoes ahead. " Damn the torpedoes ! " shouted 
the admiral ; " go ahead, full speed ; " and the 
Hartford and her consort steamed forward. As 
they passed between the buoys, the cases of the 



3i8 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

torpedoes were heard knocking against the bot- 
tom of the ship ; but for some reason they failed 
to explode, and the Hartford went safely through 
the gates of Mobile Bay, passing the forts. Far- 
ragut's last and hardest battle was virtually won. 
After a delay which allowed the flagship to lead 
nearly a mile, the Brooklyn got her head round, 
and came in, closely followed by all the other 
ships. The Tennessee strove to interfere with the 
wooden craft as they went in, but they passed, 
exchanging - shots, and one of them striving to 
ram her, but inflicting only a glancing blow. The 
ship on the fighting side of the rear couple had 
been completely disabled by a shot through her 
boiler. 

As Farragut got into the bay he gave orders 
to slip the gunboats, which were lashed to each 
of the Union ships of war, against the Confed- 
erate gunboats, one of which he had already dis- 
abled by his fire, so that she was run ashore and 
burnt. Jouett, the captain of the Metacomet, had 
been eagerly waiting this order, and had his men 
already standing at the hawsers, hatchet in hand. 
When the signal for the gunboats to chase was 
hoisted, the order to Jouett was given by word 
of mouth, and as his hearty "Aye, aye, sir," came 
in answer, the hatchets fell, the hawsers parted, 
and the Metacomet leaped forward in pursuit. A 
thick rain-squall came up, and rendered it impos- 



FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 319 

sible for the rear gunboats to know whither the 
Confederate flotilla had fled. When it cleared 
away, the watchers on the fleet saw that one of 
the two which were uninjured had slipped off to 
Fort Morgan, while the other, the Selma, was un- 
der the guns of the Metacomet, and was promptly 
carried by the latter. 

Meanwhile the ships anchored in the bay, about 
four miles from Fort Morgan, and the crews were 
piped to breakfast ; but almost as soon as it was 
begun, the lookouts reported that the great Con- 
federate ironclad was steaming down, to do battle, 
single-handed, with the Union fleet. She was 
commanded by Buchanan, a very gallant and able 
officer, who had been on the Merrimac, and who 
trusted implicitly in his invulnerable sides, his 
heavy rifle guns, and his formidable iron beak. 
As the ram came on, with splendid courage, the 
ships got under way, while Farragut sent word 
to the monitors to attack the Tennessee at once. 
The fleet surgeon, Palmer, delivered these orders. 
In his diary he writes : 

" I came to the Chickasaw ; happy as my friend Perkins 
habitually is, I thought he would turn a somerset with joy, 
when I told him, ' The admiral wants you to go at once and 
fight the Tennessee? " 

At the same time, the admiral directed the 
wooden vessels to charge the ram, bow on, at full 
speed, as well as to attack her with their guns. 



320 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

The monitors were very slow, and the wooden 
vessels began the attack. The first to reach the 
hostile ironclad was the Monongahela, which 
struck her square amidships ; and five minutes 
later the Lackawanna, going at full speed, de- 
livered another heavy -blow. Both the Union 
vessels fired such guns as would bear as they 
swung round, but the shots glanced harmlessly 
from the armor, and the blows of the ship pro- 
duced no serious injury to the ram, although their 
own stems were crushed in several feet above and 
below the vater line. The Hartford then struck 
the Tennessee, which met her bows on. The two 
antagonists scraped by, their port sides touching. 
As they rasped past, the Hartford 's guns were 
discharged against the ram, their muzzles only 
half a dozen feet distant from her iron-clad sides ; 
but the shot made no impression. While the three 
ships were circling to repeat the charge, the Lack- 
awanna ran square into the flagship, cutting the 
vessel down to within two feet of the water. For 
a moment the ship's company thought the vessel 
sinking, and almost as one man they cried : "Save 
the admiral ! get the admiral on board the Lack- 
awanna." But Farragut, leaping actively into the 
chains, saw that the ship was in no present dan- 
ger, and ordered her again to be headed for the 
Tennessee. Meanwhile, the monitors had come 
up, and the battle raged between them and the 



FARRAGUT AT MOBILE BAY 321 

great ram. Like the rest of the Union fleet, they 
carried smooth-bores, and their shot could not 
break through her iron plates ; but by sustained 
and continuous hammering, her frame could be 
jarred and her timbers displaced. Two of the 
monitors had been more or less disabled already, 
but the third, the Chickasaw, was in fine trim, and 
Perkins got her into position under the stern of 
the Tennessee, just after the latter was struck by 
the Hartford ; and there he stuck to the end, 
never over fifty yards distant, and keeping up a 
steady rapping of 11 -inch shot upon the iron 
walls, which they could not penetrate, but which 
they racked and shattered. The Chickasaw fired 
fifty-two times at her antagonist, shooting away 
the exposed rudder-chains and the smokestack, 
while the commander of the ram, Buchanan, was 
wounded by an iron splinter which broke his leg. 
Under the hammering, the Tennessee became 
helpless. She could not be steered, and was un- 
able to bring a gun to bear, while many of the 
shutters of the ports were jammed. For twenty 
minutes she had not fired a shot. The wooden 
vessels were again bearing down to ram her ; and 
she hoisted the white flag. 

Thus ended the battle of Mobile Bay, Farra- 
gut's crowning victory. Less than three hours 
elapsed from the time that Fort Morgan fired its 
first gun to the moment when the Tennessee hauled 



322 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

down her flag. Three hundred and thirty-five 
men had been killed or wounded in the fleet, and 
one vessel, the Tecumseh, had gone down ; but 
the Confederate flotilla was destroyed, the bay 
had been entered, and the forts around it were 
helpless to do anything further. One by one they 
surrendered, and the port of Mobile was thus 
sealed against blockade runners, so that the last 
source of communication between the Confederacy 
and the outside world was destroyed. Farragut 
had added to the annals of the Union the page 
which tells of the greatest sea-fight in our history. 



LINCOLN 









O captain. My captain. Our fearful trip is done ; 

The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is 

won; 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and 

daring : 
But O heart ! Heart ! Heart ! 
Leave you not the little spot, 
Where on the deck my captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 

O captain. My captain. Rise up and hear the bells ; 

Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills ; 

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths — for you the shores 

a-crowding; 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces 

turning; 
O captain. Dear father. 
This arm I push beneath you ; 
It is some dream that on the deck, 
You 've fallen cold and dead. 

My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will : 
But the ship, the ship is anchor'd safe, its voyage closed and 

done; 
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won : 
Exult O shores, and ring, O bells. 
But I with silent tread, 
Walk the spot the captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 

— Walt Whitman. 



LINCOLN 



AS Washington stands to the Revolution and 
JTx. the establishment of the government, so 
Lincoln stands as the hero of the mightier strugf- 
gle by which our Union was saved. He was born 
in 1809, ten years after Washington, his work 
done, had been laid to rest at Mount Vernon. No 
great man ever came from beginnings which 
seemed to promise so little. Lincoln's family, for 
more than one generation, had been sinking, in- 
stead of rising, in the social scale. His father was 
one of those men who were found on the frontier 
in the early days of the western movement, always 
changing from one place to another, and dropping 
a little lower at each remove. Abraham Lincoln 
was born into a family who were not only poor, 
but shiftless, and his early days were days of ig- 
norance, and poverty, and hard work. Out of 
such inauspicious surroundings, he slowly and 
painfully lifted himself. He gave himself an edu- 
cation, he took part in an Indian war, he worked 



326 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

in the fields, he kept a country store, he read and 
studied, and, at last, he became a lawyer. Then 
he entered into the rough politics of the newly- 
settled State. He grew to be a leader in his 
county, and went to the legislature. The road 
was very rough, the struggle was very hard and 
very bitter, but the movement was always upward. 

At last he was elected to Congress, and served 
one term in Washington as a Whig with credit, 
but without distinction. Then he went back to 
his law and his politics in Illinois. He had, at 
last, made his position. All that was now needed 
was an opportunity, and that came to him in the 
great anti-slavery struggle. 

Lincoln was not an early Abolitionist. His 
training had been that of a regular party man, 
and as a member of a great political organization, 
but he was a lover of freedom and justice. Slav- 
ery, in its essence, was hateful to him, and when 
the conflict between slavery and freedom was 
fairly joined, his path was clear before him. He 
took up the anti- slavery cause in his own State, 
and made himself its champion against Douglas, 
the great leader of the Northern Democrats. He 
stumped Illinois in opposition to Douglas, as a 
candidate for the Senate, debating the question 
which divided the country in every part of the 
State. He was beaten at the election, but, by 
the power and brilliancy of his speeches, his own 



LINCOLN 327 

reputation was made. Fighting the anti-slavery 
battle within constitutional lines, concentrating his 
whole force against the single point of the exten- 
sion of slavery to the Territories, he had made it 
clear that a new leader had arisen in the cause of 
freedom. From Illinois his reputation spread to 
the East, and soon after his great debate he de- 
livered a speech in New York which attracted 
wide attention. At the Republican convention 
of 1856, his name was one of those proposed for 
vice-president. 

When 1S60 came, he was a candidate for the 
first place on the national ticket. The leading 
candidate was William H. Seward, of New York, 
the most conspicuous man of the country on the 
Republican side, but the convention, after a sharp 
struggle, selected Lincoln, and then the great po- 
litical battle came at the polls. The Republicans 
were victorious, and, as soon as the result of the 
voting was known, the South set to work to dis- 
solve the Union. In February Lincoln made his 
way to Washington, at the end coming secretly 
from Harrisburg to escape a threatened attempt 
at assassination, and on March 4, 1861 assumed 
the presidency. 

No public man, no great popular leader, ever 
faced a more terrible situation. The Union was 
breaking, the Southern States were seceding, trea- 
son was rampant in Washington, and the Govern- 



328 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

ment was bankrupt. The country knew that 
Lincoln was a man of great capacity in debate, de- 
voted to the cause of anti-slavery and to the main- 
tenance of the Union. But what his ability was 
to deal with the awful conditions by which he was 
surrounded, no one knew. To follow him through 
the four years of civil war which ensued is, of 
course, impossible here. Suffice it to say that no 
greater, no more difficult, task has ever been faced 
by any man in modern times, and no one ever 
met a fierce trial and conflict more successfully. 

Lincoln put to the front the question of the 
Union, and let the question of slavery drop, at 
first, into the background. He used every exer- 
tion to hold the border States by moderate meas- 
ures, and, in this way, prevented the spread of the 
rebellion. For this moderation, the anti-slavery 
extremists in the North assailed him, but nothing 
shows more his far-sighted wisdom and strength 
of purpose than his action at this time. By his 
policy at the beginning of his administration, he 
held the border States, and united the people of 
the North in defense of the Union. 

As the war went on, he went on, too. He had 
never faltered in his feelings about slavery. He 
knew, better than any one, that the successful dis- 
solution of the Union by the slave power meant, 
not only the destruction of an empire, but the vic- 
tory of the forces of barbarism. But he also saw, 



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LINCOLN 331 

what very few others at the moment could see, 
that, if he was to win, he must carry his people 
with him, step by step. So when he had rallied 
them to the defense of the Union, and checked 
the spread of secession in the border States, in the 
autumn of 1862 he announced that he would issue 
a proclamation freeing the slaves. The extrem- 
ists had doubted him in the -beginning - , the con- 
servative and the timid doubted him now, but 
when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, 
on January 1, 1863, it was found that the people 
were with him in that, as they had been with him 
when he staked everything upon the maintenance 
of the Union. The war went on to victory, and 
in 1864 the people showed at the polls that they 
were with the President, and reelected him by 
overwhelming majorities. Victories in the field 
went hand in hand with success at the ballot-box, 
and, in the spring of 1865, all was over. On 
April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered at Appomattox, 
and five days later, on April 14, a miserable assas- 
sin crept into the box at the theater where the 
President was listening to a play, and shot him. 
The blow to the country was terrible beyond 
words, for then men saw, in one bright flash, how 
great a man had fallen. 

Lincoln died a martyr to the cause to which he 
had given his life, and both life and death were 
heroic. The qualities which enabled him to do 



332 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

his great work are very clear now to all men. 
His courage and his wisdom, his keen perception 
and his almost prophetic foresight, enabled him 
to deal with all the problems of that distracted 
time as they arose around him. But he had some 
qualities, apart from those of the intellect, which 
were of equal importance to his people and to the 
work he had to do. His character, at once 
strong and gentle, gave confidence to every one, 
and dignity to his cause. He had an infinite pa- 
tience, and a humor that enabled him to turn aside 
many difficulties which could have been met in 
no other way. But most important of all was 
the fact that he personified a great sentiment, 
which ennobled and uplifted his people, and made 
them capable of the patriotism which fought the 
war and saved the Union. He carried his people 
with him, because he knew, instinctively, how they 
felt and what they wanted. He embodied, in his 
own person, all their highest ideals, and he never 
erred in his judgment. 

He is not only a great and commanding figure 
among the great statesmen and leaders of history, 
but he personifies, also, all the sadness and the 
pathos of the war, as well as its triumphs and its 
glories. No words that any one can use about 
Lincoln can, however, do him such justice as his 
own, and I will close this volume with two of 
Lincoln's speeches, which show what the war and 
all the great deeds of that time meant to him, 



LINCOLN 333 

and through which shines the great soul of the 
man himself. On November 19, 1863, he spoke 
as follows at the dedication of the National cem- 
etery on the battle-field of Gettysburg: 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on 
this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedi- 
cated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether 
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can 
long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. 
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final rest- 
ing place for those who here gave their lives that that nation 
might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should 
do this. 

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot con- 
secrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, 
living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far 
above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little 
note or long remember what we say here, but it can never for- 
get what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to, 
dedicated here to the unfinished work which they hnv e^iought 
here, have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to 
be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that 
from the honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause 
for which they gave the last full measure of devotion ; that we 
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ; 
that this nation, under God, shall have anew birth of freedom ; 
and that government of the people, by the people, for the peo- 
ple, shall not perish from the earth. 

On March 4, 1865, when he was inaugurated 
the second time, he made the following address : 

Fellow-countrymen : At this second appearing to take the 
oath of presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended 



334 HERO TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY 

address than there was at the first. Then a statement, some- 
what in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed proper. 
Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public dec- 
larations have been constantly called forth on every point and 
phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and 
engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be 
presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly 
depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, 
I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With 
high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ven- 
tured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all 
thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. 
All dreaded it — all sought to avert it. While the inaugural 
address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether 
to saving the Union without war — seeking to dissolve the 
Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties depre- 
cated war ; but one of them would make war rather than let it 
perish. And the war came. 

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not 
distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the south- 
ern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and power- 
ful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the 
cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this 
interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the 
Union, even by war ; while the government claimed no right 
to do more than to restrict the Territorial enlargement of it. 
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the dura- 
tion which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that 
the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the 
conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, 
and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the 
same Bible, and pray to the same God ; and each invokes his 
aid against the other. It may seem strange that any man should 
dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from 
the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we 



LINCOLN 335 

be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered — \ 
that of neither has been answered fully. 

The Almighty has his own purposes. " Woe unto the world / 
because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come ; 
but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we 
shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses 
which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, 
having continued through his appointed time, he now wills 
to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this ter- 
rible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offenses come, 
shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attri- 
butes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to 
him? Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this 
mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God 
wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bond- 
man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be 
sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall 
be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three 
thousand years ago, so still it must be said, " The judgments of 
the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness 
in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on 
to finish the work we are in ; to bind up the nation's wounds ; 
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his 
widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and 
cherish a just, a lasting, peace among ourselves and with all 
nations. 



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